


deadwinter

by mortsix



Category: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Genre: (referenced) Zaknafein Do'Urden/Jarlaxle Baenre, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, artemis’s long-suffering expressions, cake and also filth, duels disguises dancing and more tropes than you can shake a stick at, jarlaxe’s love of the theatrical, referenced past sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-09-26 12:16:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 55,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortsix/pseuds/mortsix
Summary: Fifteen years after their last meeting, Jarlaxle has been thriving in Waterdeep when he learns that Artemis Entreri is in the city. Entreri has a contract to kill a corrupt Masked Lord, and Jarlaxle is only too pleased to offer his assistance.But Jarlaxle's feelings for his former partner remain unresolved, and as they navigate political intrigue and high society, he may ruin the relationship he is trying to rekindle. [Complete]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The seed of this story came after I read _Waterdeep: Dragon Heist_ several months ago, because the wealth of detail about Jarlaxle was too good to pass up. I wrote it at speed this week while travelling, during which time it became a fluffy Xmas story (except compliant with Faerunian winter traditions), and then became so, so self-indulgent. I think it'll be two or three chapters. 
> 
> The timing of this story is deliberately vague, some years after the events of the more recent novels. There are spoilers for novels up to _Charon's Claw_ , with minor references to _Maestro_ , but this is essentially an AU and doesn't have much to do with canon. There are, however, spoilers for Jarlaxle's role in _Waterdeep: Dragon Heist_ , but not much else. 
> 
> I wrote much of this story in a Paris train station, and so Waterdeep has acquired a dubiously French fin de siècle cultural feel which is totally uncanonical.
> 
> The [Zhentarim](http://dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-dragons/story/faction/zhentarim) ("the Black Network") are a widescale mercenary organisation with a longstanding interest in gaining power in Waterdeep. The [Masked Lords](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Lords_of_Waterdeep) form most of Waterdeep's ruling council, and their identities are secret. [These](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Nimblewright) are nimblewrights.

The _Eyecatcher_ creaks and rocks in the idle wash of Deepwater Harbour.

Out of the porthole of Jarlaxle’s chambers, Waterdeep is quite lovely—flush with illumination, a simmer of coloured light like a bonfire. He can hear strains of music from the shore, a quartet on the corner of Sail Street playing a lively reel for coins.

He has been in Waterdeep not four days, lately returned from Luskan. The other place needs little steer from him, his affairs left in Beniago’s able grasp, but it is necessary to make the trip from time to time if only to remind Gromph he doesn't have the run of the place.

On his desk he finds the latest report penned by Valas Hune, who has journeyed with him to Waterdeep. It is generous of Kimmuriel to loan him Valas for the winter season—but Kimmuriel recognises there is great potential in Waterdeep, perhaps more than Luskan, even if the risk is also greater. Valas has brought with him a few of his best scouts, and they have been gathering crucial intelligence on the major powers in the city, laying the foundations.

But today Jarlaxle drags his eyes down the report, finding little of note. This time of year—the dead of winter, as the surfacers call it—is slower, though not uneventful. In these months of cold and darkness there is yet intrigue, but it is a different kind, and many of the players take the season to rest and gather themselves for the city’s thaw.

He pauses to sift through his other correspondence. _The jostling between Melarn and Xorlarrin continues_ , Kimmuriel writes from Menzoberranzan. _Our spy reports a recent appeal by Melarn to the Council. We will receive writs close from Baenre within the tenday. It will be an edict of neutrality, despite the popularity of the new archmage._ Kimmuriel’s letters often read like prophetic enunciations; he doesn’t make assertions unless he is certain of them, and when he is certain he is right—almost always, at least.

Jarlaxle pens a brief note in reply. Like Beniago, Kimmuriel needs only rare direction, having as he does quite the head for politics despite hating intrigue in all its forms. He writes another note to Lady de Beausergent, who wishes the company of “Zardoz Zord” for dinner on the thirteenth of next month; and one to Drury, his tailor, who writes that his new cape is ready to be collected.

He pours another half cup of wine and picks up Valas’s missive once more. At the foot of the parchment Valas has written a hasty addendum:

_Not related to any ongoing interest—_

And beneath it:

_Artemis Entreri is in Waterdeep._

Jarlaxle’s first reaction is a peculiar, unfeeling sense of shock. He hasn’t heard the name in a long time. He can’t imagine why Valas would make a point of including this.

Then he reminds himself stupidity isn’t among Valas’s qualities, nor blindness. When Entreri was still in the northlands Jarlaxle’s interest—if that was the right word—in him was quite plain to see, and Valas had brought him such missives as this with almost an air of apology, as though it were a regrettable affliction.

Jarlaxle cants his chair backward and thumps his boots up on the desk. He flicks a fingernail against the rounded rim of his cup.

He has left Entreri alone since their last meeting over fifteen years ago. However, it wouldn’t be correct to say that he has heard _nothing_ of the man—if an associate happened to be near Calimport, where was the harm in having them make a few enquiries? It could only be in the company’s interest, after all, to keep an eye on any figure of note in the region, which Entreri has always been.

Thus he knows that Entreri is living in Calimport, and living comfortably. Among southerners there is some superstition about how a human came to live so long, rumours that he might be a lich or a vampire. When Jarlaxle heard that he wondered if Entreri found them amusing or insulting. Entreri’s longevity was previously a difficult topic, because of Entreri’s ambivalence about Charon’s Claw; and much more difficult—if not forbidden—after the incident with the Netherese. From the limited information he has received Entreri appears as young and capable as ever.

Curious that Entreri might be so far north, and in the deep of winter. During their terse parting conversation in Luskan Entreri had used strong language to convey that he wouldn’t come north again; and Jarlaxle had understood that he wanted to give himself that solace, that small resolution, in the face of much that was uncertain.

And then Entreri had left, ridden out of Luskan and taken the first boat south from Baldur’s Gate. It had stung—Jarlaxle could admit that much to himself—but worse than that, there was no resolution. Much was left unsaid, the possibility of picking up where they left off went unrealised. Since then Jarlaxle has avoided thinking of him, because it brings regret, but sometimes he lets himself wonder how Entreri fares, if Entreri has found some measure of contentment; if Entreri ever thinks of him.

To the nimblewright he says, “Fetch Master Hune, if you would.”

It bows, the feather on its hat bobbing, and goes out.

Valas arrives promptly. Before Jarlaxle can speak, Valas says, “He’s been here a few hours. One of the men happened to sight him at the South Ward Gate. He didn’t give his real name to the magister on duty.”

His lieutenant knows him too well. Were Valas not so loyal and circumspect, Jarlaxle would already have had him killed.

“Where is he staying?”

“The Gethle Rest.” Valas seems to hesitate before adding, “Second floor, third on the right.”

Entreri has troubled to find himself decent lodgings, in the middle of the city—perhaps he means to stay a while. There is a buoyant sensation in Jarlaxle’s chest. “And where is he now?”

“We don’t know. He’s difficult to track, that one. Disappeared entirely after leaving the inn.”

“Of course he is,” says Jarlaxle, and he is smiling. “My thanks.”

He casts off all thoughts of paperwork, and fetches his cloak and a few items for the excursion. He will find Entreri himself.

Out on deck the air is sharp, and has a delicate scent of brine. Jarlaxle is so accustomed to the sea that he scarcely hears it, except when it is slapping and breaking with force against the sides of the ship.

Soluun, one of his lieutenants, is standing at the edge of the deck, watching the oarsman ready the dinghy for sail to the mainland. His human disguise is swarthy with fine features, dressed like a well-to-do traveller with a neckcloth and his pistol at his hip.

“Good evening, captain.”

“Soluun. How do you fare?”

“Well,” says Soluun. “Yes—well. A pleasant evening awaits you, I hope?”

“So do I.”

“Are you going far? I can arrange an escort.”

These newer lieutenants are of a lower calibre than those he chose to lead the company’s divisions in Menzoberranzan and Luskan, certainly not as exceptional as Kimmuriel or as quietly brilliant as Valas; but they are loyal and able. “Not a great distance, no,” says Jarlaxle. “To see an old friend. And an escort isn’t necessary—if he becomes a danger to me, having additional men will make not an inch of difference.”

“He lives in Waterdeep?”

“No, I suspect he’s merely visiting.” He considers—he doesn’t know what business Entreri might have in Waterdeep, but Entreri tends to become tangled in the momentous, the illicit, and the disruptive, the sort of events Bregan D’aerthe follows closely. For the first time in a while, there is a chance his personal affairs will present a conflict with his work. “All the same, have Valas brief you on Artemis Entreri, and then stay out of Entreri’s way if you encounter him—and ensure the patrols do the same. If I require anything I will call on Valas.”

“Artemis Entreri,” Soluun repeats. “That isn’t a drow name, I take it?”

“No,” says Jarlaxle, and he doesn’t miss how Soluun’s lip curls, “he’s not drow.” It is always tiresome, dealing with the virulent racism among the men he has brought to the surface. Soluun is worse than most—by any measure the hatred his family instilled was extreme, and as a consequence his impulses toward surface elves are truly revolting. Jarlaxle knows he spends his free nights in the city hunting them, and were it not for the City Watch his victims would litter the streets. It is a problem Jarlaxle will have to address, sooner or later.

They make other conversation during the boat ride to the shore, as the bright lights draw nearer. When they are standing on the dock Jarlaxle tips his hat to his lieutenant, who offers a fervent salute, and Jarlaxle strolls off toward the High Road and a man he hasn’t seen in fifteen years.

 

* * *

 

True to form, Entreri has trapped every means of entry to his room.

Levitating outside the window, Jarlaxle presses upon his eyepatch and the wall becomes pale and seethrough. Wires lie against the glass pane in an intricate lattice. It would be a shame to ruin such fine work, so he throws the silky fabric of the portable hole against the wall, and the plaster splays backward like a concertina, showing him a glimpse of the darkened, empty room inside. Then he finds in his pocket the stone he collected from the street and throws it through. It clatters upon the floorboards—no reaction, no trap. He slips through.

It would be gauche—and time consuming—to go through Artemis’ belongings, but he notes that Artemis has brought only a small pack, which suggests a short stay. On the bed are the usual plain, dark garments, though made of fine wool; a razor blade, a few maps, strips of dried venison in paper.

Jarlaxle has always had a sense of the dramatic, even when his only knowledge of theatre came from the violent, apocalyptic morality plays put on by Lolth’s priestesses in public squares during feastdays, and the illegal satires performed by troupes in the Braeryn which tended toward the vulgar and the blasphemous. The prospect of this reunion appeals to the same part of him which delights in climactic scenes of return, or unmasking, or revelation.

It is, he thinks, rather like the climactic scene in the opera Quinault—although, admittedly, he is casting Entreri as the beautiful, long suffering heroine returning home to find her tempestuous lover waiting for her after his escape from prison. He can see the actors in his mind, the shadow which falls across the stage, the tokens left for her to find; and it is that which makes him reach into his pocket, and leave on Artemis’ pillow a single sprig of dark lavender.

Looking about him, the tall armchair in front of the empty fireplace will serve. He sits down, and waits.

It isn’t very long—half an hour—before there comes a quiet click of the door, and footsteps. The door closes, and he hears Entreri unpin his cloak and set it aside, then pour himself a cup of water from the nightstand. He goes to the nearby window to drink it, looking out into the street. He hasn’t yet seen Jarlaxle.

Then Entreri turns, beginning to pace the other way, and Jarlaxle hears him stop and knows he has noticed the lavender. There is a pause.

“No,” Entreri murmurs. His footsteps come nearer, and stop; then nearer still.

When he is very close, Jarlaxle says, “I would hate to think you are becoming complacent, _abbil_.” He rises out of the chair with a flourish.

The accounts are true: Artemis looks not a tenday older than the last occasion they met. He looks better, in fact—a richer tone to his skin, less strained about the eyes—although it is the fine, keen face Jarlaxle remembers, with the slight aquiline sharp of the nose, the sketched shadow of beard, the long dark eyelashes. His hair is now shoulder length and loosely tied, fingered into disarray by the wind. He is dressed all in black, and the scabbard at his side is drab leather and steel bracing but there is no mistaking Claw’s hilt.

Artemis folds his arms and rubs a fingertip upon the bridge of his nose.

“Jarlaxle.”

The trouble with the theatre and opera, Jarlaxle thinks, is that they have no dramatic work about a quiet, irascible assassin who is more difficult to please than a matron mother and might react to any well intentioned action with mild amusement, annoyance, or incandescent rage.

He says, “I had no notion you would be making the journey up here so late in the year, I must confess I was surprised to learn it—but not displeased, of course!”

“And did you pause to consider whether I might wish for you to appear in my room, uninvited and unannounced?”

“I only wished to surprise you.”

“No,” says Artemis, as if he hasn’t spoken, “you never do.”

Jarlaxle is about to object that Artemis should not ask a question if he means to answer it himself, but it occurs to him that Artemis sounds immensely tired. The journey from Baldur’s Gate isn’t a trivial one in clement weather, let alone with the wind lashing snow nearly sideways as it has been in recent days. Furthermore, he understands that he has set a foot over one of those lines Artemis draws vigilantly about himself, and the effect is not unlike setting off one of Artemis’ traps.

“Then to make amends, will you allow me to buy you a drink? The Bear, near the docks, does excellent honey mead.”

He has a sense that a tavern might feel to Artemis like neutral territory. It seems prudent not to mention that he owns the establishment, that would be needlessly inflammatory.

“One drink only.”

“Of course, my friend.”

He lets Artemis lead the way, and as they go out he tugs upon the brim of his hat and brings to mind his disguise: the young Luskan actor Erystian Demarne, a pale human with a deerlike naive face and masses of blond hair dragged into a sort of tousled knot that is the fashion in Waterdeep. Artemis, noticing the change, merely sighs.

The Bear is full of patrons, pleasantly abuzz. They carry their drinks—mead for Artemis, a brandy for himself—to a small table tucked beneath the staircase. Jarlaxle swipes a lit candle from another table and sets it between them.

“You look well,” he says.

“You look ridiculous,” says Artemis. Jarlaxle doesn’t know when it happened but the mien of his eyes has become somehow more elven than human, that quality of long and profound experience, of having lived so many years without being wasted by them. Where most humans sour and deteriorate he is becoming only finer with age.

His expression is as dour as ever, he wears his irritation plainly; but Jarlaxle knows it is defensive, as it ever was. It conveys discomfort as much as displeasure.

“Ah, well, in some places the ridiculous is appreciated.”

“Your own appreciation doesn’t count. Why are you wearing that?”

“At times I may wish to come and go without my whereabouts being known,” says Jarlaxle, and counters with a question of his own: “What brings you to Waterdeep?”

“Business,” says Artemis, betraying himself not a whit.

“I’m surprised it would bring you so far north.”

“It pays well. That is the only reason.”

“Pays well—so a difficult job, or a high ranking target, or both. Waterdhavian noble, perhaps.”

“Keep out of my affairs, Jarlaxle.” Artemis has always interpreted his motives rather uncharitably, and thus treats them with suspicion.

“Of course, I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”

“I don’t doubt you dream all manner of sordid things, interfering with my business being the least of them.”

“I might be able to help you.”

“Help me.” It is a stern look, although Artemis’ voice is trimmed with irony. “As you have _helped_ previously, no doubt.”

Neither of them has so much as mentioned Idalia’s flute, but he is almost certain that is what Artemis is thinking about. Time might heal all wounds, but it is no balm for a man who bears a grudge like another limb. ‘Help’, to Artemis, might as well be ‘force’ or ‘manipulate’.

So while Jarlaxle’s curiosity is piqued there is no use in venturing further down this avenue—not now, at least. And so, rather than letting Artemis’ words hang maladroit in the air, he changes the subject with enough grace that it will seem a concession:

“You’ve had a hard journey of it, I’m sure—do you mean to stay long?”

“As long as necessary,” says Artemis, “and no longer.” The previous moment of tension is regrettable; it will take some minutes for Artemis’ hackles to smooth.

“Have you visited the city before?”

“Not for any significant length of time.”

“You’ve chosen a quiet time of year.”

“I didn’t choose it at all,” says Artemis. That sounds like blackmail, but Artemis’ demeanour hasn’t changed and Jarlaxle detects no real resentment—unlike how Artemis used to speak about Herzgo Alegni and the Shadovar, what little he spoke about them at all—and so he concludes it must be merely a concerned or a pushy client.

“Sometimes it goes like that,” he says. “Particularly if they are very accustomed to getting what they want.”

Artemis nods. “If the money is good…”

“Quite,” says Jarlaxle, “and even then one must sometimes shut the door, if only for one’s sanity.”

“Yes.” Artemis’ lips tick upward, too slight to be considered a smile but Jarlaxle knows to look for it. They understand each other. He forges ahead, delicately.

“And how is business?”

Artemis shrugs. “Well enough.”

“Who do you work for these days?” He knows the answer, but Artemis will prefer to believe that his life has gone unwatched.

“No one. I work for myself.” A touch of pride in Artemis’ voice; for a moment his eyes glint with something like pleasure. The notion that Artemis would return to Calimport and deliberately seek out another master is absurd; but Calimport is a vicious place to make a go of it alone, and Jarlaxle had wondered whether Artemis might simply take the known path and spare himself that hardship—of course not, he thinks now; when has Artemis ever done the easy thing?

“Your own guild?”

“Something like that.” Jarlaxle makes a neutral, encouraging noise but stays quiet. “Trading in information, predominantly. With other services, if a client wishes to engage them.”

“I assume they wish to engage them with some frequency.”

“There’s never a shortage of aristocrats and sabbalads who want someone dead and are willing to pay good coin for it.”

“High society, my my. And how often do you oblige them?”

“Not often,” says Artemis, dismissively. “I’ve no wish to attract the syl-pasha’s notice by dispatching all his courtiers.”

“It sounds as though you’ve become rather popular.”

“They keep inviting me to their dinners and social occasions. I’m a rogue for hire, not a curio for display.”

Jarlaxle laughs hard. “Ah, goodness.” He can imagine very well why Artemis’ clients might wish to display him. “So you’ve never been tempted to attend one? If only for the scandal—”

“Scandal is your forte, not mine,” Artemis counters, and then purses his mouth. “I attended one—only in order to get close to a mark.”

Jarlaxle’s mind paints a compelling image. ”You killed someone in the midst of Calimport nobility?”

“No. I stowed away in his carriage for the return journey and killed him in front of his villa.”

“I’m sure they all found that quite amusing.”

“They were delighted.”

“Nobility everywhere do love the scent of blood in the water,” says Jarlaxle, because he knows this of old. “Are all your contracts so much work?”

“Usually. It depends on how paranoid they are. In general they’ve grown better at defending themselves, after all the upheaval—”

He listens to Artemis speak about the Calishite ruling classes, a political milieu he remembers from a century ago as being intricate, mannered, and ruthless. Artemis is playing the game at a higher level of society than Jarlaxle could with Bregan D’aerthe—the risk of starting a war was not insignificant—and he has the measure of almost every pasha and noble in the city, the tangle of their debts and alliances and enmities.

The alcohol deepens and burrs Artemis’ voice. His posture has undone itself a little—shoulders becoming lax, back curving—and he is faintly flushed with the alcohol and the heat of the tavern. Jarlaxle lets himself notice, but nothing more; this is an old problem, it has no solution but forbearance.

“Fortunately I don’t spend most of my time pandering to nobles and their avid fantasies of revenge and humiliation.”

“Very wise. If you give them an inch they’ll take a mile.”

“I know,” says Artemis, and a little of the earlier tension is in the creases of his eyes, the set of his mouth, and Jarlaxle realises that Artemis means him.

It is an odd moment, tipping uncertainly between humour and—something Jarlaxle can’t readily identify. He understands that Artemis isn’t grieved to see him again, although it brings some measure of pain or bitterness; but he is being given a warning, more gently than he has ever known Artemis to give one, that he should tread with care.

He is rarely tongue tied, but a dozen things come to him at once, all of them too arch or earnest or aloof, unfitting for a moment which feels strangely momentous, and so he simply says:

“It is good to see you, my friend. I’m glad indeed that things are well.”

“Better than I expected,” says Artemis, still meeting Jarlaxle’s eyes, and his lips flicker.

At once the heat of the tavern is rather cloying. “I’d like some air, would you join me?”

“Do you breathe it better when it is moving horizontally,” says Artemis, but he pushes his empty mug toward the centre of the table and follows Jarlaxle to the door.

The wind greets them savagely, and for the thousandth time Jarlaxle is grateful for the enchantment of his clothes; he feels its bite not at all, merely eddies of cooler air which are pleasant after the sweltering tavern. Artemis swears, and pulls his cloak around himself.

“Refreshing, isn’t it?” says Jarlaxle.

“This is the Goliad River, all over again.” A memorable chapter in their odyssey through Damara. 

“If you’re feeling nostalgic, I could conjure a swarm of biting insects to contribute to your enjoyment.”

“You’re already here,” Artemis replies, “the effect would be superfluous.”

The snow on the ground has been scuffed and slushed by footfall, but here and there Jarlaxle sees a little patch which is pristine, like a new bedsheet. They go along the harbour.

“Where do you stay?” Artemis asks

“I have a ship. Three ships, in fact.”

“I’d heard,” Artemis drawls. “And a carnival, unfathomably.”

“It’s quite fathomable! A useful cover for,” he pauses, and winks, because he know what effect it will have, “other business.” And there—despite himself, Artemis grins.

“Do you need three ships for a brothel.”

“My friend, I don’t know what manner of carnivals you have in Calimport but I assure you mine is quite innocent.”

“Nothing you do is innocent,” says Artemis. “Why a carnival?”

“The distraction must be at least as interesting as the thing you are trying to distract from, no?”

“Gods.” Artemis scuffs his boot in the snow. The wind is tousling the hair about his face most attractively and it feels rather like a conspiracy of the weather and Jarlaxle’s errant thoughts. “And what is it you do here.”

“Officially? I do nothing, I am not here, I am not even on the surface. Unofficially—a little of everything, and more besides. And sometimes I simply put on a good show.”

“I read a broadsheet in Baldur’s Gate about the Day of Wonders just past. It sounded…”

“Indeed, quite marvellous—really, I outdid myself. And no animals escaped this year, which spared the City Guard quite the headache, as it’s become apparent their training doesn’t extend to animal handling _at all_.”

“How remiss of them, not to teach the guard the finer points of wrangling polar bears.”

“Well, the polar bears will be an annual fixture, they would be well advised to invest now and prevent future difficulty.”

“You mean to do it every year.”

“Certainly.”

“Why?”

“Because it pleases me,” says Jarlaxle. He is thinking of the delirium of colour and sound, the delighted, cheering crowds, faces passing like streamers, his hand being shaken until it ached, the firecrackers bursting against the dark late into the night.

Artemis looks amused but there is no mocking in it. Jarlaxle reflects that no one else in his many years of life—except Zak, perhaps—has so humoured his whims, albeit with a reliable degree of griping and sarcasm.

“Come, come.” He takes Artemis by the elbow and leads him around the corner, and for a moment they are arm in arm, and he feels effervescent, but he lets go before Artemis can bristle at it. “Here we are!” He points them out: “The _Heartbreaker_ , the _Hellraiser_ —and the _Eyecatcher_ , the flagship, further out, you see?”

“Modest as ever, aren’t you.”

“I never claim anything I can’t fulfill, my friend.”

“Horseshit,” says Artemis, with relish. Jarlaxle laughs.

The harbour lights are shining in Artemis’ black hair. The effect is rather like a halo, which amuses Jarlaxle, and particularly striking because Artemis is dressed all in black. In most cities it would camouflage him, and it makes him fade now against the night; but by day colourlessness is itself the novelty. Only chimneysweeps go about dressed like that, and Artemis certainly doesn’t look like one of that profession. Through their time together Jarlaxle was surprised the crowds didn't part for him as he walked the streets; he looks nothing less than lethal.

Jarlaxle pauses on that thought, and on the tremulous glow which is blooming in him, not as earthy as mere lust. The attraction hasn’t gone, it seems; it hasn’t even blunted, after these years. But he was cautious before, and he will remain so, even as he is tempted. Things seem on a knife edge—a misstep might sever them utterly, and he will not lose Artemis in that fashion again.

“I’m going to turn in,” says Artemis, oblivious to his silent agonies.

At once he feels a pang of worry—unfamiliar—that Artemis will slip away, return south, another fifteen years gone. “Come for dinner,” he says, before he can reconsider. “The night after next.”

“Which ship do I board?”

“ _Eyecatcher_. There’ll be a man waiting here to row you out at sundown.”

“If you like,” says Artemis, the kind of nonchalance which means agreement.

“Good, then.”

He returns to the ship in a very good mood, humming to himself the reel he’d heard hours ago. Valas is up on deck, reading a chapbook by lamplight, and nods to him as he comes aboard.

“He’s as gloomy as ever, I’d bet.”

“Not entirely,” Jarlaxle says, letting his eyes linger for a moment on the shore. “Not entirely.”

 

* * *

 

Jarlaxle is looking out to sea when the rowboat is winched onto the deck. This is, he knows, a striking tableau to greet his guest, his silhouette against the purpled sky and stonedark sea, his hair and cloak flitting hither and yon in the wind. He turns.

“That disguise is even worse than the last,” says Artemis, looking windswept and amused. “Do you spend all your time devising new ways to look ridiculous.”

Jarlaxle faces him and sweeps into an exaggerated bow. “A good evening to you as well, abbil.”

He watches Artemis blink, trying to see through the illusion; it seems to work, because his eyes give a flicker of recognition and—relief, perhaps. “That remains to be seen.”

“Most of my guests are quite gratified by their time here with me.”

“How anyone could be _gratified_ by this is beyond imagining.”

“Only if one lacks imagination,” Jarlaxle says, and mimes smoothing back a stray ringlet, if only to bemuse his guest. “Nevertheless—our chef is excellent, I do not think you will have any complaints.”

“Northern cuisine is all the same,” says Artemis, “and it is all bad.”

One of Jarlaxle's lieutenants, Fel’rekt, is briefing four soldiers on deck, ahead of a reconnoissance mission. Soluun is sitting on a barrel, cleaning his pistol with a bore brush, and glances up. It occurs to Jarlaxle that they will appear human to Artemis because of the illusory magic from the ship’s figurehead. That seems not to matter, however, because Artemis says:

“If you intend to disguise your people you might train them to hide their disgust when they look at any creature that isn’t drow. They betray themselves immediately.”

“They deal with humans aplenty,” says Jarlaxle, “dozens of them between the three vessels.”

“I doubt they differentiate between those and the creatures in cages.”

He is correct—Jarlaxle’s men feel no threat from acrobats, jesters, and musicians, they are a novelty; but they do not like a human standing on the deck of the flagship with their captain, speaking to him like a peer.

“They’re improving—I believe living here gives them a more cosmopolitan outlook.”

“I don’t doubt they’re as charming as all the rest.”

If Artemis’ sarcasm has a particularly brittle edge it is because, admittedly, his experiences with the company have been mixed at best. Jarlaxle gestures to the stair which leads below deck. “This way.”

They wander through the front half of the lower deck, past the kitchens, the berths strung with hammocks, the washrooms, the storage cabins full of provisions and spare rigging; and he leads Artemis into his quarters and shows him around.

Artemis peers into the training room, where there are ropes strung weblike between the walls and cloth dummies stuffed with straw, and a rack of various weapons and ammunition. Jarlaxle murmurs the command word, and the lamps on the wall fill with light.

“An interesting arrangement,” Artemis remarks, pulling on a rope to assess the tension.

“One must stay sharp.”

In the corner is one of the Lantanese nimblewrights, the gold frame overlaid with scarlet drapery—a vanity, although it also serves to conceal the innards. The thing is at rest, but as they pass it gives a soft whirr and its head lifts.

Artemis halts. “What is that.”

“An automaton. I have several.”

Warily, Artemis approaches it. His hand isn’t quite at his belt, but he is ready to draw a blade if it moves in a way he doesn’t like. The nimblewright raises its arm and offers a salute which is almost smooth enough to seem natural.

“Enchantment,” Artemis says. “Must be.”

“Ah, I should like to tell you, but I’m bound to keep the secrets of the craftsmen of Lantan.”

“Or you don’t know,” says Artemis. “You must be short of decent opponents if you’ve resorted to animate objects.”

“Rather, I’d struggle to find an opponent of such skill. Except, of course—” He grins.

“Keep the flattery. Perhaps spending so much time with Waterdhavian socialites has convinced you it will work on everyone—I assure you, it won’t.”

“Do you remember our sparring in Calimport?”

“Difficult to forget,” Artemis says, and Jarlaxle knows he means it in some derogatory sense; but Jarlaxle can almost imagine it is wistful. A multitude of things come to mind, none more clear than the breathless triumph in Artemis’ face the few times he got the upper hand. It had seemed important to deny him any proper victory—although it had taken a great deal of effort to do so—because he’d wanted to keep Artemis off balance; but also, admittedly, because he’d wanted to keep Artemis intrigued.

“What would you say to a bout before dinner?”

He expects a simple refusal. To the contrary, Artemis is considering it, gaze moving over the prospective field.

“Would I be sparring with you, or your several dozen illusions.”

“With me,” Jarlaxle says, “although I make no promises about the illusions.”

He has never understood Artemis’ obsession with raw skill, because it is his theory that a fight is never determined by skill alone, but by a score of variables—of which skill is merely one, and perhaps less important than a combatant’s mindset. Jarlaxle has no little ability, but he finds as much success in manipulating every other factor within his control. Artemis does no less—Jarlaxle has seen him fight dirty, taunt opponents, choose the battlefield with utmost care; he has no shortage of enchanted items, and many times he has escaped with his life simply by being clever and lucky—but there is something quaint, almost honourable, in that vestigial belief that skill of arms should matter so much.

“What about something more formal? Do you know how to fence?”

“The only kind of fencing I’m familiar with rarely has to do with swords—more to do with thievery.”

“Then I shall teach you. After all, if you are rubbing shoulders with the rich and the powerful, you should know how to duel them in their fashion. You are already a master swordsman, this is merely swordplay with manners.”

Jarlaxle chooses two foils from the rack and tosses one to Artemis, who catches it easily by the grip and curls his fingers behind the curvature of the guard.

“This isn’t a sword.”

“As baffling as it might seem, the intent is not to kill.”

“What a waste.”

“Don’t be barbaric,” says Jarlaxle. “Now, posture. It is a wide stance to begin…”

Artemis is amused by the many rules and prohibitions, the unnatural stances, the peculiarities of using a flexible blade, and when Jarlaxle shows him some of the quirks of footwork: a lunge, a flèche, an appel, and a balestra. But he attends to the demonstrations, and mimics it all perfectly, albeit with a wry expression.

“Finally—we wear masks.” Jarlaxle takes one from the rack and gives it to Artemis, who looks it over sceptically. “It protects the eyes, of course—but I find it makes the bout more intriguing, for one cannot see an opponent’s face. It is all in the body.” He puts on his own mask, and Artemis follows suit, and they face each other.

Jarlaxle grins, though he knows Artemis can’t see it. “Have at, then.”

They begin slowly—Artemis is testing the weight and flex of the blade, offering a few brisk thrusts which Jarlaxle parries, the last in a circular flick to deflect Artemis’ blade tip away.

Artemis is a wonderful opponent—in their sparring all those years ago he was never anything but serious and efficient; but this he treats rather like a game, and once he relaxes into it he has a sly and taunting style, preferring to draw Jarlaxle out in a succession of fluid thrusts and feints, dancing back from Jarlaxle’s lunge with a clockwise parry before going back on the offensive, almost dizzyingly quick.

He certainly hasn’t lost any skill; indeed, it is clear that since they parted he has found himself in more fights than has Jarlaxle—and furthermore he remembers much of how Jarlaxle fights, even in translation to this stilted and formal mode. Matching him strike for strike is taxing, and once he puts Jarlaxle on the retreat he is a dervish of motion—

Jarlaxle’s foil skids off the blade lashing for his neck, and before he can shift his grip Artemis’ foil returns in a tighter, skewed arc and glances against his shoulder.

“Hit!”

He should be pleased—it is, in the most immediate sense, proof that Artemis isn’t stagnating, isn’t becoming complacent or dull as the years go by. Artemis has lifted his mask—is grinning, handsome with it, and a frisson of delight warms Jarlaxle’s belly. But he feels bruised, something in him still rankles at the notion of a human scoring even a hit upon him; and this human, in particular.

They go three rounds more. Twice Jarlaxle is tempted to use the displacement of his hat to put Artemis off balance; but he also realises that he can use Artemis’ expectations against him. Artemis is waiting for him to use magic, and so Jarlaxle will feint as if about to conjure something or displace himself. Artemis is fooled only half the time, but the mere suggestion puts him in a more defensive stance, makes him hesitate, because he doesn’t know what magic Jarlaxle has, only that Jarlaxle uses magic unpredictably. Everything they know about each other only makes the fight more interesting.

As they are about to begin another round, the second automaton comes across the threshold and presents itself rigidly, and then bows to Jarlaxle.

“Ah, dinner is served,” he says. “Very good, let us eat—I think you’ve earned it.”

Artemis prises up his mask and returns it to the rack. “How gracious of you.” A ripple—a very slight tension. More than anything Artemis knows condescension when he hears it.

Jarlaxle, likewise divested, leads him to the dining room. It is a splendid room—panelled in mellow, polished rosewood with gold trim which gleams under the fluttery light of the chandelier. The drapes, royal purple, have been drawn, and the air is warm and perfumed with the oil of Cormyrian lavender picked at altitude, roundly sweet. He has entertained guests here many times, but never, he realises, as himself.

The automaton bears in a bottle of wine and uncorks it and pours their glasses full.

“Jarlaxle.”

“Yes, my friend?”

Artemis has noticed the black eyepatch label on the wine bottle—it is One-Eyed Jax, produced by the vineyard Jarlaxle bought some years ago. Not yet good enough to compete with the zestier southern reds, but it has come along very well.

Artemis opens his mouth, then says, “I’m not going to ask.”

Jarlaxle laughs. “Then I shall tell you, regardless—I am a vintner now.”

“Jarlaxle, have you so much as viewed the vineyard this wine comes from.”

“In fact I have visited it—twice!”

“Remarkable.”

“Try it.”

Artemis does. “Not terrible,” he says.

The first course is deep sea oysters, six each, served in their shells on a dark seaweed leaf scattered with rock salt. He looks at Artemis with mischief when they are served, and is met with a sigh. It is a matter of folk wisdom that oysters stir sexual appetite, and Jarlaxle chose them with just that implication in mind.

It is the same vein of suggestive humour Artemis used to shrug off all the time; and yet there was always that quiet hope Artemis might not shrug it off—that he might once call Jarlaxle’s bluff.

“Really.”

“Why, whatever is the matter?”

Artemis simply looks at him.

“If you wish to derive some ulterior meaning from the chosen menu, that is your prerogative, but—”

Artemis takes an oyster, slits his knife through the stem, and pours it onto his tongue with a reckless toss of his head, and swallows. The motion of his throat and the pink wetness of his mouth are transfixing. With merely the hint of a smile, he says, “Quite good.”

Jarlaxle feels an unnameable impulse so strong it is almost violent. He does the same, the oyster a mouthful of delicate, slippery salt flesh, and he swallows lasciviously, and meets Artemis’ eyes. The way Artemis looks at him is like a current of energy being passed over his skin. As if he is a doorway to wondrous things.

What draws others, Jarlaxle has found, isn’t beauty; although he knows he is, by almost any standard, beautiful. It is intrigue. Most people in the world are bored, and wish to be fascinated; to imagine they are lovely and scintillating, and their lives are kaleidoscopic and full of possibility. Jarlaxle enjoys the pleasure of others like almost nothing else—being the object of it, particularly, but also the vicarious thrill of their delight. It is an appetite he never tires of indulging.

Artemis’ enjoyment is like rare, exquisite wine, stowed away for years in a deep cellar to become finer and more complex, and decanted only in the smallest measures. Jarlaxle has waited a long time for the right moment to sup it—perhaps it will be now, he thinks.

They eat two more courses of food which Artemis has to concede is very fine, and finish with a sweet dessert wine. Artemis doesn’t allow Jarlaxle to pour his glass full; he must be feeling inebriated.

“Age catching up to you?” Jarlaxle’s smile is, he imagines, mostly innocent. It is a joke he wouldn’t make if Artemis were sober.

“Of all people, I won’t hear jibes about that from you,” says Artemis. “You must be more than halfway to your first millennium. Senility can’t be long off.”

“On the contrary, I’m as sharp as I ever was.”

“How unfortunate for you,” says Artemis, with exquisite sarcasm, and Jarlaxle laughs.

As he sees Artemis off on the deck, he is gripped again by the sense that Artemis might suddenly leave—without warning, without a farewell; simply ride out of Waterdeep and not return.

“Come again,” he says, “on the twentieth. If you are still here.”

Artemis steps into the rowboat, adjusting the fingers of his glove. He looks up at Jarlaxle. “If you insist,” he replies.

And he does.

They don’t spar again: it has the tinge of risk, when things between them are still unstable. Instead they drink a great deal of the contents of Jarlaxle’s liquor cabinet and his store of wine, and he tells Artemis about his fortunes in Luskan, and his forays into Waterdhavian trade and society. About his carnival, and his theater, and his vineyard. About his journeys to Lantan. He leaves out some details, rearranges others; but nothing he tells Artemis is untrue.

Artemis is more reticent—still wary of him, wary of the surroundings and the drow who go about the ship, wary of giving Jarlaxle something he might use, which is lamentable. But he offers a little about his work, his clients, his acquaintances.

“Do you like it?” Jarlaxle asks.

“Like what.”

“Is it pleasing to you, living as you do?”

Artemis appears puzzled, as though he has never considered whether the milieu he has created for himself is congenial or detestable. “Yes,” he says. “I doubt there is anything better.”

There is a sting in that, which Jarlaxle can’t bring himself to examine. “There is always something better.”

This earns him a flicker of an eyebrow. “And you,” Artemis says, “is this,” with a gesture of his hand which seems to sum their surroundings, the ship, the city entire, “pleasing to you?”

Jarlaxle smiles, at all of it, and at his oldest friend. “Yes,” he says. “It will do.”

 

* * *

 

Three nights later Artemis returns yet again, at Jarlaxle's request, and in a mercurial mood. Something has frustrated him, and it is one of those occasions when he regards his own frustration with a glib sort of irony, as if it is novel he should care about something at all.

The sunset is magnificent, a bright and banked fire to the west, so they remain on deck to watch it. Artemis has a black woollen scarf wrapped about his throat, and puts up his cowl against the chill.

Below deck they play a game of three dragon ante, which Jarlaxle wins by cheating outrageously, while they drink more of Jarlaxle’s wine. Artemis offers sarcastic commentary, trying to hide his amusement, and then he too begins to cheat.

Jarlaxle had forgotten, during those fifteen years, how very fond of Artemis’ company he is.

They move to the dining room, beginning with chicken livers in red wine. The next course is _poivre jaunet_ with a ginger and saffron broth, steaming, fragrant. Artemis offers no comment, but Jarlaxle can tell he is lingering over the flavour, the complexity of the spices. The air feels more settled.

Then Artemis puts down his spoon and says, apropos of nothing, “The man I’m here to kill is Corylus Thann.”

Jarlaxle’s surprise is momentary. His mind leaps. Corylus Thann—a thug, a dupe, and a nasty xenophobe, but greatly powerful in Waterdeep and beyond. “One of the Masked Lords.”

“Yes.”

The murder of a Masked Lord would have complicated results—short term chaos, a murder investigation, the opening of a seat, political jostling among possible appointees, a new dynamic within the Council. And yet the thing which presents itself most strongly is the danger in which Artemis is about to place himself. It is rare that Jarlaxle is the more cautious, but he feels he must impress upon Artemis what a perilous course this is. He has never known another city which treats murder so heavily, nevermind the murder of a man in high political office. “My friend—”

“I know,” says Artemis flatly. “Once it is done I will be leaving, immediately.”

“Tell me, who could possibly want such an pleasant man dead?”

“The client,” it seems Artemis means to keep the identity a secret, “owns a vast and successful vineyard. Three years ago Corylus began purchasing the land around it on every side, evidently aiming to intimidate him into selling. It didn’t work, so Corylus has opted instead for sabotage. His vineyard relies on slave labour—halflings, mostly, and a few dozen elves. The slaves are overworked, and it is cheaper to purchase new slaves than feed his current workforce properly, so he lets them die—likely he is killing scores, if not hundreds every year. In recent months he has begun dumping the corpses on my client’s land. The rotting draws insects, the insects destroy the crop…”

“Ghoulish, and expensive. There is no legal recourse, I take it?”

“No. The Council of Five in Athkatla doesn’t care about a dispute between rival winemakers—and if anything, they’d be more likely to side with a Masked Lord, should Corylus disclose his identity.”

“Which he undoubtedly would,” Jarlaxle says. “Why did you take the contract?”

“You know why.” The ingredients are, certainly, a potent mix where Artemis is concerned. The only things missing are a crooked priest and a wererat.

“All right. How would you proceed?”

Artemis scrapes out his dish, lets his spoon clatter down, and rests his elbows on the arms of his chair. “Breaking into his property would be challenging, given his paranoia—I’ve been able to gauge all of the outer protections, but it will take more days of canvassing it to get the full measure. A more likely plan would be to lure him out, although he is rarely seen outside the estate except when he travels by carriage to political engagements. He has a personal retinue of six guards; they are well trained, well paid, and accompany him everywhere. It might be possible to intercept his carriage, but at risk of drawing the City Watch—better to infiltrate one of his engagements, or induce him to go off schedule. I’ve been trying to understand his motives, what might incite him enough to override his caution.”

“And?”

“A man named Jens Le Tellier believes his house was overlooked for ennoblement by the Lords of Waterdeep because Corylus obstructed it and convinced the Council they were engaged in criminal activity. Le Tellier wrote an anonymous letter published in one of the broadsheets claiming it was because he is half-elven, and one of the Masked Lords—who he does not name—is racist. I learned who he was via the publisher of the broadsheet and the messenger who delivered the letter, and visited his villa.”

“I’m sure you were not at all threatening.”

“I didn’t have to be. Le Tellier is angry—it is making him rash. He believes Corylus has been blocking any political advancement or noble investiture of nonhumans since being appointed a Lord five years ago—the list he gave me is some twenty names long, those who have contacted him regarding their suspicions of prejudice within the Council. What he told me of them… seemed credible.”

“Why has he not reported it himself?”

“He is frightened—most of Corylus’s victims are frightened, because Corylus has the City Watch in his pocket, and the magistrates. And they don’t know who among the Council they can trust.”

“Do you have the list?”

Artemis put a hand into the pocket of his breeches and produced a folded leaf of parchment, which he handed over.

“Interesting.” Jarlaxle reads down it, all names he knows—minor nobles of outrageous fortune, merchant families with veritable monopolies on certain goods, esteemed guildmasters, high ranking and decorated captains of the City Watch—people who should occupy the highest ranks of Waterdhavian society. “Yes, the Zhentarim also knew about his endeavours, and were using that as leverage to get protection, pardons, and such.”

His eye catches upon a name. It is familiar, he thinks, but he cannot bring the details to mind. “De Constantin…”

“Mixed blood,” Artemis says, “human and elf. The de Constantin family sought ennoblement—”

“A few years ago,” Jarlaxle says—now he recalls. “Summer of 1499, I think. They were quite aggressive, poured their funds into buying favour from other families, quite the gamble—bankrupted themselves, I believe.”

“Yes, they did.”

“And to no avail—so, it was Corylus who spoke against them, how interesting. I assume they’re wasting away in penury, or else some noble house has them by the throat for their debts.” He is still looking at the parchment. “Jaufre de Constantin? I thought the head of that household was Avrelyian de Constantin.”

“Jaufre is his brother. Tethyrian, more elf than human. Avreylian is getting on in years, so Jaufre manages the family’s affairs—what’s left of them—from Tethyr. He refused to come to Waterdeep when Le Tellier requested. Le Tellier didn’t mention why.”

“Indeed,” says Jarlaxle, and the beginnings of an idea draw together in his mind. “Has Jaufre ever been to Waterdeep?”

“No.”

“How sure are you of that?”

Artemis frowns. “Reasonably. Not certain.”

“Do you think Corylus would know him by appearance?”

Artemis catches on straight away. “You mean, if someone were to _claim_ to be Jaufre, would he know the difference.” Jarlaxle smirks, and nods. “No. But Corylus isn’t idiot enough to simply walk out of his estate and allow such a person to cut him down.”

“Certainly not. There are rules and codes for this sort of thing.”

“You mean—”

He knows many things about Corylus Thann he should not know, but one thing Corylus likes to put about is his talent for fencing. He was once a decorated officer of the City Watch.

“Officially, duelling is forbidden here. But the tradition remains very highly regarded among the nobility—young nobles in particular are fanatical about it. None of them would dare intervene to stop one, were it to take place.”

“A duel,” says Artemis.

“Yes, such as might be used to settle an irreconcilable dispute between two people of high birth.”

“Jaufre isn’t of high birth, technically.” Artemis picks up his glass, thumbs absently at the rim, and sips. “Besides, I imagine Jaufre and Corylus would struggle to find anything that might be considered ‘neutral ground’ on which to engage in mortal combat.”

“Ah, well, you may know—and perhaps it is the same in Calimport—the nobles like to complain that this is a season of short days and endless nights, because of how many tedious dinners and balls one must attend.”

“What does that have to do with it.”

“The next on the calendar is being thrown by the Massalan family—is the name familiar?” Artemis shakes his head. “They’re considered new money—if one can call their ennoblement of two hundred years ago ‘new’—and they’ve made their fortune in diamonds. They are, in the Waterdhavian fashion, quite the basket of snakes, but they do so _love_ to feel important, and they hold an annual ball on Deadwinter’s Eve, five days hence. Like every ball that isn’t the debut of some beloved scion, it is masked.”

“And they’ve invited you, presumably.”

Jarlaxle laughs. “No doubt they would, if only they knew of me! No, they’ve invited Mirt, another Masked Lord, who has graciously accepted.”

“And he told…” Artemis pauses, and raises an eyebrow. “No. You have a spy in his house.”

“Quite so. Mirt doesn’t go out of his way to conceal his office, but he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, either.”

“And they’ve invited Corylus.”

“I would bet on it—but as far as I know, Corylus has no plans to attend, because he never attends anything, unless his arm is being twisted.”

“How fortunate, your particular talent.”

“In this case, I don’t think talent is needed. The Zhentarim had him easily over a barrel, and for a long time—until they were distracted by, ah, other matters.”

“We’re not the Black Network,” says Artemis, but his face is full of thought.

“We need not be,” says Jarlaxle. “Corylus knows the City Watch and the magistrates won’t implicate him—”

“But he knows another Masked Lord would,” Artemis picks up the thread, “if someone were to show them proof. So it would be a threat he couldn’t ignore—a victim revealing his misconduct to one of his peers, should he fail to attend.”

“And if it is a duel…” Jarlaxle prompts.

“He can silence his accuser, without anyone intervening—and no repercussions, because of his position.”

“If it can be pulled off, you will be able to kill him in such a fashion that no one will look for an assassin.”

“Good.”

“I think,” Jarlaxle says, “even without having met the man, that you would make an excellent Jaufre de Constantin.”

Artemis smiles, that meagre and terrible smile; it is a look Jarlaxle remembers well.

The second course is cleared away; a third course is served, slices of spiced quince butter cake, golden brown and spiced with cinnamon and star anise. In his mind Jarlaxle is already running through the particulars of the drama.

“There will be no need to steal our way into the ball. I believe I can get an invitation, and you will be my guest. Naturally we must look the part, so I shall put in an order with my tailor—no doubt he will charge dearly for expedited work, but it cannot be helped—”

Artemis taps his fork against the side of his plate. “You’re going to enjoy this. Too much.”

“Of course! Disguise, intrigue, a duel, the downfall of a rank and corrupt politician—it will be, I think, a most _diverting_ evening.”

“I dislike nobles,” Artemis mutters, but his dark eyes are full of energy; he delights in the hunt no less.

“Come,” Jarlaxle says, when they have both finished eating. “There’s a delightful whisky I’d have you try, it will make an ideal digestif. And we should see about a letter to Corylus, from his accuser.”

Artemis follows him into the sitting room and accepts a glass of Ostrav single malt. He looks as always glaringly out of place, dark as a raven and leaning against the sideboard, surrounded by bright and sumptuous things—which makes him seem only rarer and more elusive.

Jaufre de Constantin would exercise some caution in blackmailing a Masked Lord, for fear that Corylus might try to root out the man who threatens him before the duel can take place. Therefore Jarlaxle has Artemis dictate the letter to one of the nimblewrights, which inks it in a flat, straight hand. Jarlaxle is tempted to assist with the wording—a little drama will go a long way—but restrains himself.

“Have him send his reply to room sixty-eight at the Wyvern’s Rest inn. I’ll pay the proprieter to keep it empty.” The Wyvern is rather rough-and-tumble, they won’t object to a room being wrecked so long as there’s coin in it.

“Likely he’ll send his men to shake the place down.”

“Then we will know that it has him worried.”

When it is finished, and the ink is dry, the nimblewright folds it and hands it to Artemis.

“We have nothing to prove this is written by de Constantin,” says Artemis.

“We need none. The threat is significant enough he won’t be able ignore it. Corylus _needs_ to remain a Masked Lord—he is stepped so far in wrongdoing that he can’t afford to lose its protections.”

“How do you intend to deliver it?”

“That, my friend, is your task. Now that you’ve so thoroughly familiarised yourself with Corylus’s house—it should be no effort at all to ensure this gets into his hands.”

“Done.”

They go on drinking, the atmosphere warmed. Jarlaxle’s gaze slides around the room, taking in the many fine things he has amassed, and his eye is caught by the jars of sound on the shelf, which look like fog pressed up against a window. Merely having them brings him such pleasure—the wonder of the invention, the particularity of each jar; but he finds himself driven to open the one he most wished to save, as if to prove he is unafraid of wasting it.

Artemis is watching him as he reaches for it. “Tell me if I will have cause to regret what you are about to do.”

“It is a clever sort of enchantment, quite new. A sound can be trapped in the vessel—or rather, not the sound but a perfect copy—and it will play when the jar is opened.”

He can tell Artemis’ interest is piqued. “Continuously?”

“No. Once it is gone, it is gone. It cannot be recaptured.” He puts the jar on the table and Artemis comes to his side to look. “This is the last performance of the great Waterdhavian violist, Ginette Theuveny. She died the day after, which makes it rather… poignant.”

He thumbs out the cork. The mist begins to drift out of the jar, and there comes a flourish of sound, the opening viol solo of Cataire’s eighth string quartet, so crisp and pervading it is as though the player is in the room with them. Jarlaxle finds himself almost turning his head to seek her out.

It is a warm, sweet music; autumnal, somehow, in the tone of the instrument and the way the melody rises and dwindles, reminescent of falling leaves, or falling light. Ginette hadn’t known she was going to die—she was young, it was sudden, her heart simply gave out and she wasn’t found until the next morning—but the music has a prescience to it, a melancholy which enters and lingers. There is death everywhere in art, of course, but Jarlaxle hears in this piece something not found in art made by elves; to him, it is distinctively human.

Beside him Artemis stands quite still, glass in hand, listening.

When I met you, Jarlaxle thinks, you were entirely indifferent to beautiful things. He remembers the cold, angry, mortal man who thought drow were enviable and had filled himself up with murder and little else; how he seemed merely useful at first, and then gradually interesting, and then—

He lowers his glass to the table. He feels impulsive, Artemis makes him impulsive—how Kimmuriel used to complain of it, those years ago when they were travelling in Damara—and he puts his hand on Artemis’ hip, and Artemis turns his head, surprised, and Jarlaxle kisses him.

He feels the faint pricks of Artemis’ shaven cheek. There is in his chest a thump of recognition— _finally_ —because he wanted to do this for years, years, and yet it was never the right time, there were always reasons it would be unwise, and Artemis was so _bitter_ in Luskan, so wounded and angry. His posture is stiff now, his breathing tense, so Jarlaxle goes forth with care, mouthing softly at his lips, coaxing his mouth open, dragging a little upon his lower lip, and Artemis seems to relax, lips moving in a rougher, slower mimicry of what Jarlaxle is doing. Against Jarlaxle’s tongue is a tinge of the whisky; which should, he thinks, always be supped like this. It is a thrill of the kind he hasn’t had in so long, and it could be no one else.

Artemis’ hand is laid upon his chest, and there is an odd moment when Artemis stops moving, and dips his chin, a little abortive jerk.

Then Jarlaxle is shoved unceremoniously back, so hard he almost stumbles.

It is glass shattering, it is the wake after a scream—this resounding silence. Artemis is looking at him like an animal weighing whether to bolt or fight.

“I don’t,” says Artemis, raggedly, “with men.”

“I see.” He doesn’t, he is perplexed, because Artemis’ body was telling him quite another thing, was veritably _shivering_ with interest; but Jarlaxle has never wheedled or bartered for sex and he doesn’t intend to begin now, and certainly not with Artemis.

“There is… someone, in Calimport.” Later it will strike him as odd that this is Artemis’ second objection, not his first; in the present moment it is like a needle through his breast. Quite irrationally, he is angry—not at Artemis, but at whoever presumes to make such advances upon him, as if they could deserve him. And yet, Artemis’ tastes have always been unfortunate—competent but damaged, his type.

“I see,” Jarlaxle says, again, all his eloquence flown. “I apologise.”

“Why.” The viol is still swelling, achingly sweet. “Why did you—”

“Why?” An impossible question, so of course Artemis asks it now, when Jarlaxle feels as though part of him is recklessly, helplessly, unacceptably exposed. Because— “Because I wished to.”

He means it to sound charming, winning; but Artemis flinches as if Jarlaxle has slapped him. “You cannot just—” In a kind of slashing motion Artemis puts down his glass, sharp enough that a little of the whisky sloshes over the lip. “I should be going.”

“Artemis—” He stops. “Very well.” He will not ask Artemis to stay—it would be unseemly, like grovelling; and he is struggling to understand this reaction even as he realises it was the most likely of all possible outcomes.

When Artemis is gone he cannot stomach the music any further; he puts the cork back into the bottle, cutting off the quartet in the middle of the first movement. He sits listening to the sturdy creaking of his ship, and drinking the rest of his whisky.

There are his many simple entanglements, each one a slip knot that can be undone with scarcely a pull; and then there is Artemis, a complexity, a bind he can neither tighten nor undo. He doesn’t know what compelled him to step over that last threshold—why he’d been gripped with the need to make real what had always been the stuff of innuendo and irony; and why then, just when it seemed they’d reached some manner of equilibrium.

For the same reason, he supposes, that things between them went so awry in the first place. Because he sees possibility in Artemis he has seen in almost no one else; and no one living. It seems he can never leave it alone. But he has begun to consider that perhaps nothing will ever come of it.

Better for them to die early, he thinks savagely, than live long enough to become disappointing.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Their next meeting, the following evening, is stilted and unhappy.

He finds Artemis in the Full Sails tavern, shortly after seven. Around them, the tavern is noisy with drinkers and musicians: the few days before Deadwinter are full of revelry in an otherwise sombre month, crowding every pub and bawdyhouse. Looking across the tavern, Jarlaxle sees a host of ruddy, laughing faces, he sees drunkenness and pleasure.

But Artemis, sitting across the table with one hand curled around a mug of mulled cider, is stiff, cagey, sometimes avoiding Jarlaxle’s gaze, sometimes meeting it with a kind of aggressive obstinacy. Jarlaxle’s disguise—the Luskan actor Erystian Demarne, with his pale ingenuous face and golden hair—only makes things worse.

“Did you deliver the letter?” Jarlaxle asks.

“Yes.”

“How did you get it inside the villa?”

“What does it matter,” says Artemis. “It is done.”

“I’m merely curious—you described the Thann villa as something of a fortress.”

No answer, except that dark, barren stare.

“My tailor is on the corner of Rivon Street and Vellars Lane, off the High Road. He is excellent, and discreet. I will see you there tomorrow at four o’clock.”

“I assume you have something in mind for masks.”

“Of course, leave those to me. And they will not permit you entry if you are visibly armed, so I shall bring your sabre in a bag of holding.”

“As you will,” says Artemis. Not a witticism, not sarcastic; just blank, colourless.

Jarlaxle dislikes this, vehemently—dislikes Artemis’ discomfort and his own, dislikes how every word he speaks to Artemis seems to clang against that iron carapace, discordant and deflected. Not a day ago they were sitting in his quarters playing cards, mirth like gilt in the corners of Artemis’ eyes and mouth, and that sensation in Jarlaxle’s chest of being full up.

Artemis gulps the rest of his cider. “Someone has been following me.” He is about to leave, but he pauses to throw out this puzzling gambit.

“Who?” Jarlaxle is certain Artemis can’t have been so clumsy as to draw the notice of his intended mark; perhaps someone else has learned of his presence, for certainly he is famous—nay, notorious—in the south, and parts of the north. Then Jarlaxle realises it is an accusation, which is confirmed when Artemis says:

“I think you know.”

“I assure you, I don’t.” For once, Jarlaxle is innocent as charged. Only this morning Valas confirmed the patrols are giving Artemis a wide berth, not that they’ve seen much of the man. But he supposes it isn’t _entirely_ an unfair accusation, given that the company has some history of having Artemis shadowed.

“Tell your lackeys to stay away from me.”

“I have not told them to go _near_ you,” Jarlaxle protests—really, Artemis is being quite irrational about a kiss which meant very little, and it is making him irrational about other things besides.

Artemis looks at him still, and his eyes say: _liar_.

Afterward Jarlaxle returns to the _Eyecatcher_ , pausing only to chide four soldiers who are idling above deck. In his quarters he takes off his cloak, tosses it upon the floor, and paces the length of the rug by the porthole.

He isn’t upset, of course—what does it matter if Artemis is behaving thus? Artemis has always been moody and churlish at the slightest provocation, when he has only endeavoured to make Artemis’ life more pleasurable, less painful, less _dreary_. Had he not intervened, Artemis would still be like a prized bird in a cage, killing in the service of a pasha, every one of his days joyless and grey, and the anger shredding him slowly from the inside. Jarlaxle lifted him out of it, gave him direction and excitement, gave him a way to look into the core of his pain instead of burying it like yet another corpse, gave him beautiful things and taught him to enjoy them.

But he thinks of Artemis speaking about his life in Calimport, about his prosperity, about the someone who seems to have captured his interest, and again the silly hurt strikes up in his breast.

I gave you much more than I have given any other, he thinks. Who are you to throw it aside?

The next thought, when it comes from within him, sounds like his brother some years ago in Gauntlgrym; but it is, after all, Gromph’s habitual taunt. _Ah, your pride, Jarlaxle._

 

* * *

 

He expects Artemis to ignore their next meeting; but when he arrives in the late afternoon, the sun almost down, Artemis stands in the lane which runs alongside the tailor’s shop, dark and patient as a stone, and acknowledges him quietly, neutrally. Almost as if the unfortunate event never occurred. This, Artemis is good at.

The shop is bright, mannequins in the window dressed in the fashions of the season: a cloth-of-gold gown with a very low, square décolletage and a gathered train; a short wool cloak trimmed with white winter ermine; a slashed satin doublet in white and cobalt. Fashion is fickle in Waterdeep, and unlike in Menzoberranzan—where a male in colourful attire can cause a sensation—it takes a great deal to shock and amaze the upper classes.

Master Roz Drury, his tailor, greets him with a slow smile and a bow. Drury is Waterdhavian old stock, a hoary and whiskered gnome with a superb eye for cut and fabric, and a warm, stoic, unexcitable manner. Unwittingly he has sewn wardrobes for many of Jarlaxle’s personas, every manner of garment from the prosaic to the outlandish.

“Master Zord, how good to see you.”

Jarlaxle bows in turn. “You’re quite well, I hope?”

“Steady business,” says the gnome, meaning he is rushed off his feet with the demands of the season. He sidles off to the rail at the back of the shop, which is almost bowed with the weight of formal gowns sheathed in crepe paper, robes, shirts, cloaks, and overcoats. He parts two garments to reach another hanger. “You received my note.”

“I did, and I’m most eager to collect it from you.”

Drury returns with the cape draped over his arm, and spreads it gently over the empty work bench, turning up one edge so Jarlaxle can see the underside. It is precisely as he imagined it: cut from dusky blue velvet, embroidered delicately with scrolls of gold, and lined inside with carmine silk taffeta.

“Exquisite,” he says, running his fingertips across the selvaged hem to feel the weight of the fabric and the stitching, his eyes almost closed in pleasure. He knows even before he sees it that it will drape beautifully, and the flash of lurid, bloodlike silk will catch the eye when he moves. “As always—exquisite.”

The bill is pinned to the collar. Six hundred dragons seems a pittance for such craftsmanship, so he tips a generous twenty percent, if only to see the old gnome blush and shuffle his feet and bow.

“Now, if I might—this is my friend, Yvan Tourvel, an actor of some renown.” He gestures to Artemis. Drury will not know the difference between a real actor and a pretend one; it is doubtful he knows what the inside of a theatre looks like, because that would require him to leave his shop. “I’ve no doubt your schedule is full to bursting, but I wonder if you might have time to assist him. He finds himself with an invitation to a masked ball and nothing fit to wear.”

“Would that be the Massalan ball? Deadwinter’s Eve?”

“The very one. He’s more the rugged type, used to life on the road, but he does so wish to fit in with such esteemed guests, he has nothing but admiration for Waterdhavian nobility—”

“I will throttle you,” Artemis murmurs, very soft.

“So—a doublet and breeches?” Drury removes a piece of parchment from a drawer and reaches for a quill and begins to note in his deliberate, looping italic hand. “And a cape, or a cloak?”

“A cloak,” says Artemis firmly, without looking at Jarlaxle.

“A cape would be more fashionable,” says Jarlaxle.

“A cloak.”

Jarlaxle glances at Drury, to see if he detects anything amiss in this bickering; but the gnome appears as serene as ever. “Capes are also the fashion in Tethyr, are they not?”

Drury’s thick brows pinch together. “In Tethyr?”

“Where my friend hails from.”

“Ah. The court coat is, I believe, the men’s fashion in Darromar this year, although it is a less refined design than those we are accustomed to seeing here. I would consider it more of a _greatcoat_ , the influence of the rather uncouth maritime culture is apparent—”

“A coat, then,” says Artemis, in a tone which brooks no argument.

“Very good. Well then, let us begin. Please do be seated, master Zord.”

The gnome holds out his open hand, and Jarlaxle slips off his cloak and passes it over. Artemis does likewise, and Drury drapes them over his arm as though handling sea silk and goes to hang them on the wooden cirlicue rack.

To Jarlaxle he says, “Would you care for some tea?”

“Rose if you have it, thank you.”

Artemis follows Drury to the back of the shop, where four tall mirrors, glass on each side and gilded all around, form a loose square around a reared step in the rug. There is a table laden with drawings, and the corner is densely lit by hanging lanterns.

“If you would undress, master Tourvel.”

Jarlaxle expects Artemis to baulk, or at least object; but Artemis nods and turns his back to Jarlaxle, a signal Jarlaxle can’t even pretend to misunderstand.

So Jarlaxle wanders instead toward the shop window, looking out at the traffic of people and carriages on the darkened street. He can hear Drury speaking, and Artemis’ quiet reply, and he is tempted to eavesdrop by magical means, until he remembers that Artemis will sense it. He pretends to be absorbed by the mannequins clothed in finery near the counter, but their limbless, beige cloth bodies have become suggestive.

By and by an apprentice brings his tea, a bone china cup and saucer on a silver tray, and he glances fleetingly toward the other side of the shop to see Artemis stood between the mirrors and shrugging off his undershirt, the muscles broad and shifting in his back. He has lost nothing there, either—trim and strong, a body which speaks of hard work, and mastery. The same word comes to Jarlaxle’s mind: exquisite.

Jarlaxle feels suddenly warm; there is a shimmer of anticipation winding up his backbone. The measuring goes on for several minutes, and he can’t help but attend to it, Drury’s voice dictating numbers to his apprentice, the particulars of Artemis’ body, knowing Artemis is undressed to his smallclothes not ten feet away.

The worst tortures are self inflicted, he thinks.

At length he hears from Drury a contemplative “hm,” and the tailor wanders off into his brimming lair of cloth and buttons and half-sewn wonders. Artemis slips behind the curtain and returns having put on his trousers. Jarlaxle leaves his tea undrunk and wends his way idly toward Artemis, keeping his tread slow and soft. It makes no difference: Artemis is alert to his approach, the tilt of his jaw mistrustful.

The table beside Artemis is laden with samples of fabric. “May I?”

“I’m sure you’ll do as you like.”

It is as near to permission as he’ll get, so Jarlaxle allows his hand to venture over the array, trying to imagine shades of this colour, or that, this wool or that velvet, without too closely imagining Artemis’ body, which is a very great hardship with Artemis so nearby, and so tempting. He turns the bolt of pale fresh green satin to see how it looks in the light; and lingers on a scarlet damask silk, going so far as to hold it against Artemis’ shoulder—no, not right.

“Red, I think, would be rather on the nose,” he murmurs.

“Too bold,” Artemis says. Jarlaxle notices his breathing has grown shallow, almost a quaking of his belly, and endeavours not to think of touching Artemis’ skin to feel that quick, live shudder. “Unlike you, I'm capable of subtlety.”

Jarlaxle reaches for another, a bolt of deep peacock blue, and begins to hold it up.

“No,” says Artemis, quickly.

“It will look quite—”

“ _No_.”

Jarlaxle lowers his arm, but not all the way. He doesn’t understand why Artemis is so resistant to the vibrant and the provocative, when he makes a statement of himself merely by looking so very dangerous.

Artemis releases his breath. “Gods, you haven’t changed at all.”

Jarlaxle bristles at that, but he doesn’t let his smile fall. “Changed in the way you wish, you mean.”

“In the way that means you don’t treat me like a child or a _pet_.”

That gives him pause—surely Artemis doesn’t believe such a thing. Yet he cannot help but look wistfully at the lavender, the soft fleshy peach; Artemis would look very fine in a bright blue. And all the while Artemis watches tensely, as if marshalling himself for further argument.

“I simply think,” says Jarlaxle, “that it would be an opportunity to give yourself—”

“No,” says Artemis, his calmness now cracking, eyes hot, “this has nothing to do with my wishes. It is always what _you_ wish, when you wish it.”

“Not at all—”

“In fact, you seem to feel a great liberty to go _against_ my wishes—”

“My friend, I have only your best interests at heart—”

He realises, even as it comes out, that it is entirely the wrong thing to say. “And why,” Artemis' voice crescendoes, “should you decide on my behalf what those are!”

Silence—as though the air lies broken around their feet. An apprentice scuttles into the workroom. Jarlaxle is taken aback—by the shout, by Artemis’ visible anger. Helplessly, he is reminded of their farewell in the paupers’ graveyard in Memnon, Artemis throwing the broken pieces of the flute at his feet. _Cursed_ , Artemis said, and Jarlaxle had known he didn't only mean the flute.

He lets his hand fall.

“All right,” he says, quietly. “All right.”

Artemis folds his arms, shoulders hunched; he is feeling exposed, but in his usual obstinate fashion he doesn’t want to be seen retreating.

A half a minute goes by. Jarlaxle’s mind is moving quickly—he has overstepped another line, but he rebels against the notion of backing down when he is _right_. It has always been manifestly obvious that he can better see what is in Artemis’ interests; after all, when they met Artemis had ground himself down to a core of rigid, joyless discipline and rushed headlong into a feud with Drizzt he was unlikely to survive. Jarlaxle had rescued him from that; rescued him from boredom and self-hatred; rescued him again, and again.

But the Artemis he faces now seems almost another man. He has old eyes and a different repose, no longer unbending and wrathful. He has a lover, apparently, and a fortune, and he has made for himself a life which satisfies him without taking a tithe from his soul.

Jarlaxle leads and Artemis follows, that was always the way; but what if Artemis no longer wishes to follow him—no longer _needs_ to follow him?

Drury chooses his moment to return judiciously, bearing yet more rolls of fabric in his arms.

“Have you any thoughts on colour?” he asks Jarlaxle, who must rouse himself from all these dismal thoughts.

He does not wish to condescend to Artemis further. _Like a child, or a pet_ —what a horrible notion. “Merely thoughts,” he says, cautiously. He reaches for a bolt of silk, a soft ashen grey which is almost blue, and holds it up. It looks well with Artemis’ eyes, as he’d known it would. “Perhaps this for the doublet,” he says, “and,” he casts about, with a questioning glance at Artemis, “a very dark grey for the coat? I’d suggest velvet, and a high collar. Gold buttons.”

Drury looks thoughtful. “What say you?”

Artemis nods, his jaw clenched. “Black for the rest.”

“Ah, so, so—” Drury disappears again, and bears out an armful of garments, which he hangs upon a nearby rail. He has Artemis put on a plain satin shirt, and then an assortment of doublets one after another. Artemis refuses anything with padding or voluminous sleeves, and settles upon a simple and short-waisted style, showing a slash of satin at either hip.

Then Drury sends him behind the curtain to try on a pair of breeches. “The fashion is close fitting,” Drury says, flourishing a pair so that Jarlaxle can see the straight cut, “like so—”

Artemis emerges, in the same shirt as before, but now wearing a pair of breeches in dark cloth which end high on the calf. Barefoot, the shirt tails loose, he looks like an aristocrat in a state of déshabillé.

“Yes, I see,” says Jarlaxle, and he wonders if he sounds a little strangled.

Drury is murmuring about buttons as he stands beside Artemis to assess the cut, turning Artemis a little so that Jarlaxle sees the lovely swell of his backside. There is a moment when he is looking at Artemis’ body, and Artemis knows he is looking; and Artemis says nothing, merely stays very still, and Jarlaxle can’t discern whether he is being encouraged or endured.

“They are worn with high boots,” says Drury, so he has Artemis try on several pairs until he is satisfied with the fit and look.

Lastly the tailor brings out several mockups of coats in bland brown fabric, and has Artemis put them on one after another. The second to last seems to be favoured, and Artemis must forbear while Drury pins and tucks the shoulders and sleeves and waist, and marks it up with dressmaker’s chalk. Within minutes Artemis is scowling, his movements short and abrupt. He loathes being touched by strangers, and with such familiarity; Jarlaxle is about to intervene when Drury steps back.

“Good—yes, that will—”

By now Drury is sketching designs on thin paper pinned to a board, wandering around the shop and looking at this mannequin and that. Pointedly Artemis slips behind the curtain to dress, and so Jarlaxle follows Drury, denying himself a backward glance.

When Artemis rejoins them, Drury brings them to the counter. “I’ll have to call in several of my apprentices to work off hours—it will be expensive.”

“Whatever the cost,” says Jarlaxle.

“Three hundred dragons up front, and the rest upon collection. You will come here on the day, at five o’clock.”

Jarlaxle puts a hand to his side, fetching out his purse again—but Artemis is ahead of him, counting out new minted Waterdhavian moons with a distracted air which tells Jarlaxle that business in Calimport is, indeed, very good, or that Artemis is rather upset. Drury takes the pouch and passes it off to an apprentice, who disappears into the back room; Drury considers it uncouth to count coins in front of his customers. The apprentice returns and nods to his master, and Drury smiles.

“Three days hence, then.”

Artemis doesn’t wait, he retrieves his own cloak and fastens it and walks out of the shop.

Jarlaxle leans against the counter.

“What fabric will you use for the breeches?”

“Doeskin.”

“I should like a pair, but in white. This shade exactly,” and he flourishes the ivory sleeve of a doublet worn by a mannequin. “Would that be possible?”

“Yes, sir, I believe we can stretch to that.”

“You have my measurements. I’d like them snug. And put it all on my account, would you?”

“Sir.” Another bow. “Your patronage is always appreciated.”

“It is my pleasure to spend all my coin on the fine things you make. I know you will do no less fine work for him.”

Then he hurries after Artemis.

Outside it has begun to snow, a white and dizzy glistening in the air. After many years, Jarlaxle still cannot quite become accustomed to water falling out of the sky, but it is always lovely to view.

Artemis seems barely to notice it. There is a kind of melancholy in his face, like tiredness but more desolate, and Jarlaxle feels a funny pang in his chest at the sight of it. It isn’t the first time he has seen Artemis wear such a look; he slides it away to contemplate later.

Then his mind swivels back to the masquerade, the assassination plot—as things come together, he applies himself to looking for ways in which they might fall apart. It is fortunate Artemis has agreed to let him assist, for together they are formidable.

“We should reconnoiter the Massalan estate together and plan our means of escape,” he tells Artemis, having looked subtly about to make sure they are alone. “Meet me on the corner of Delzorin Street on Deadwinter’s Eve, at sundown. We can—”

Artemis walks away, without so much as a word.

 

* * *

 

The next day Jarlaxle finds himself dwelling—Gromph would call it _sulking_ , no doubt—on his erstwhile partner, and his own strange discomfort.

Were it merely carnal it could be resolved, or at least eased, by a good vigorous fuck. The day is a series of engagements in various disguises: an invitation to tea at Brendallin’s with Mademoiselle de Scudéry, a late luncheon with a Zhentarim informant, an afternoon matinee performance of the new operetta at the opera house; and the drinks reception for the closing night of _The Queen of Diamonds_ at his theatre, where he is introduced to Aubin Margaster, of the noble house of Margaster, who contrary to his name is dark eyed and dark haired, though pale as a Jobert anenome, and transpires to have a remarkably filthy mouth when Jarlaxle is pinning him against a door backstage. Ordinarily Jarlaxle would want to enjoy someone so lovely and eager on silk sheets bathed in lamplight, but frustration gets the better of him. Aubin sinks onto his cock as he reclines on the tattered chaise in Madame Donatien’s dressing room, and even as he spends himself inside Aubin’s smooth, convulsing body, there is something flat and tedious about the whole affair. It is cruel, he knows, to push Aubin abruptly off his lap and depart without so much as a farewell, a fond word, the promise of a future dalliance he won’t keep; but his mood has soured, he has already grown tired and queasy of such pretty, empty diversions, like eating too much mille-feuille.

As he walks back toward the docks, he reflects that rejection has never troubled him like this. True, he is rarely rebuffed—he is persuasive, and he doesn’t pursue those who don’t wish to be pursued—but it isn’t unknown, and he has always taken it philosophically, with good humour. This time should be no different, but it is.

More than once he retreads the moments before he kissed Artemis, wondering if it might have gone otherwise, if there is a sequence of events in which Artemis doesn’t push him away, but instead things proceed in a vein that is warm and surprising, and arrive at Artemis sprawled and naked and languorous in his bed, dark hair laid out wild upon the pillow, watching him with that very rare, unhurried curiosity which says, what will you do now?

Then he considers the brief sadness he’d seen in Artemis’ face, while the snow fell. Artemis said he wasn’t unhappy with his life, and Jarlaxle believed him; all the same, Jarlaxle isn’t a fool. Beyond a slantwise joke he hasn’t referred to Artemis’ longevity, but it is now extraordinary for a human, because he is being kept alive unnaturally by a sword he detests, and shows not the merest sign of ageing. Artemis expected to die when he was thirty-seven; he isn’t long off two hundred. Humans don’t live for centuries, it isn’t in their constitution, yet Artemis faces the prospect of centuries more, and perhaps millennia, a life which trails on and on unchanging.

No wonder, then, that he seems already weary of it.

Jarlaxle can admit he knows nothing about the sword and how Artemis is bound to it. If it were possible to convince Artemis to stay in Waterdeep, he would try to investigate, he would have Hereld and Kimmuriel devote their considerable expertise to it.

But even if it is selfish, even if it is cruel, he isn’t certain he would be willing to help Artemis free himself of it—because then he will die as humans do, all too quickly.

All is quiet aboard the _Eyecatcher_. On the way to his bedchamber he passes the dining room, which is pristine and empty. He keeps recalling the pleasure of those few hours in Artemis’ company, the sense of possibility spreading out like a wide, open road as they spoke.

But there is no possibility. They will kill Corylus Thann, and Artemis will leave. Things will go back to how they were, and he will cease to feel disturbed in these ways only Artemis can disturb him. A relief, he tells himself—and he tries to believe it.

 

* * *

 

It is trivial to arrange a ball invitation for the actor Erystian Demarne, who has returned to the city after a tumultuous autumn season in Baldur’s Gate.

‘Erystian’ pays a visit to his sometime lover, Katerina Talmost, daughter of one of Waterdeep’s oldest noble families, recently divorced. The sex is dull—behind the lacquer of smiles and teasing Jarlaxle feels weary, yet all his edges too sharp—but afterward, lying amid the wreck of bedclothes, Erystian laments to her that he has been overlooked for such an important social occasion, that perhaps he had been mistaken in believing Waterdhavians to be _true_ patrons of the arts.

The next afternoon an invitation from Lady Massalan is sent to Erystian’s inn room at _The Ruby_ , which remains unoccupied. Jarlaxle is in his chambers aboard the _Eyecatcher_ when Soluun delivers the envelope.

There is another envelope, too—held shut with a lump of wax but no family seal, retrieved from room sixty-eight at the _Wyvern's Rest_.

“The room was turned upside down,” Soluun says.

“A warning,” Jarlaxle says, staring at the envelope in his hand. He holds it up before his left eye and looks it over with the eyepatch, finding a wisp of magic coiled through the envelope like a hook through a fish.

“Captain?”

“Nothing to worry about—but I suspect it may be trapped or otherwise unpleasantly enchanted. Fetch Hereld, would you?”

Hereld isn’t aboard the _Eyecatcher_ , of course; he resides on the _Heartbreaker_ , where he likes to spend his time creating enchantments for the parade floats. It is rather gratifying to watch one of Sorcere’s brightest graduates, known for his cutthroat ambition, devote his prodigious skill to spectacle and innocent trickery. Hereld finds humans bemusing, rather than disgusting or pitiable, and enjoys their awe and wonder at his illusions and growling monsters made of paper and sprees of light.

“Yes, captain.”

Soluun returns only minutes later with Hereld, the journey trivial thanks to the teleportation circle Hereld has created in the orlop.

“Captain.” Hereld bows, lower than is necessary. The wizards of Sorcere are taught impeccable manners; although, Jarlaxle thinks, ‘taught’ is a glib word for it. “You called?”

“Ah, Hereld, thank you for coming so quickly. Yes, I’ve need of your skills—I have reason to believe this,” he holds out the envelope, “may be trapped or sabotaged in some way. Would you be so good as to examine it?”

Hereld takes the envelope gingerly and turns it over, running his palm lightly across the vellum, then begins to mutter.

At length he speaks up: “Mm… yes, there’s a glyph inside it, an explosive one. Whoever sent this hoped the recipient would be, well, immolated completely.”

If Corylus has sent only a burning letter, the challenge has been refused. “Can you dispel it?”

“Oh, yes.”

Hereld gestures and mutters, and a watery glow appears around the surface of the letter, then fades.

“Let me, captain,” says Soluun, low and eager. He isn’t the first in the company to develop a fanatical loyalty to Jarlaxle, and Jarlaxle has done nothing to diminish it, though he knows it’ll likely get Soluun killed. Jarlaxle passes over the envelope, and Soluun breaks the wax, thumbing along the vellum edge with only a brief hesitation. As he does he stares at Jarlaxle with a grim fervor, the whites of his eyes very bright, and Jarlaxle feels a cold, cold stirring in his breast. That look makes him think of Lolthite zealots, martyrs, and madmen.

Nothing happens. Even before Hereld identified it Jarlaxle was confident he knew the nature of the spell, and he is content that it has now been dispelled; this was a useful test of his subordinates. He takes the open envelope from Soluun, and slides out the parchment.

 _I accept your challenge_ , it reads. Corylus Thann’s penstrokes are quick and savage. _Midnight, in the gardens_.

Corylus isn’t above trying to murder his accuser, but he has no choice but to answer the challenge. “Thank you, both,” Jarlaxle says.

“Captain.” Hereld, courteous.

“Captain.” Soluun, breathy, eager.

They depart.

Jarlaxle runs his thumb across the creased edge of the message and looks out of the porthole. The sky is churning the cold moist downdraft into the rolling air, and he can feel the augurous weight of a storm in the distance, shirring up the gloom.

Beside his elbow is a slight, flat box full of parchment; but not ordinary parchment. He takes out a piece and writes upon it:

_Our Lord has agreed. The game is on._

Then he folds it into the form of a bird, the edges and corners tucking themselves as though already creased into position, and whispers to it, “Artemis Entreri.”

The wings shiver, like a hummingbird, and it rises from the desk—he feels the little gust of air—as its head twitches to the left and right. Then it spirits away, through the pannelling, out of the ship, and he watches it until he can no longer see it against the night.

 

* * *

 

There is but one other matter to be arranged.

A bell chimes as Jarlaxle opens the door. The proprietor looks up, harried, from papers spread upon the counter.

“Good day, sir.”

“Good day.”

The symbolism of choosing masks for himself and Artemis isn’t lost on Jarlaxle. Beyond the theatre and masquerades, humans often speak disparagingly of masking and disguise and performance; they place so much weight on the real, as though there were a neat partition between a mask and what is underneath it. As though ‘unmasking’ were a simple proposition. Jarlaxle supposes it might be, in places where real things aren’t so dangerous, where masks are merely amusements which can be lightly laid aside.

Performance—and its corollary, deceit—has been in Jarlaxle’s nature for as long as he can recall, a means of survival before it was a choice. The first time they met he knew Artemis was the same. He’d rarely met a persona so rigidly performed as ‘Artemis Entreri’, and in those early years it was quite some feat to crack that cold meticulous surface even a little; with hindsight, some of his methods could be considered crude. In Memnon, at the end of their travels together, he’d believed he was seeing some rough assemblage of the mask Artemis couldn’t take off and the man underneath—but the mask had become too badly cracked for Artemis to wear it, things fell apart.

Now Artemis has the rawness of a man forced to remake himself from pieces. There are still vestiges of the old mask, but he has several faces, he can be anyone he wishes. Jarlaxle wonders which face he shows his clients—his lover—and how far it is survival, and how far a player’s enjoyment of the play.

He browses the shelves and the masks hung upon the walls. It is unclear to him whether he is choosing the mask he believes Artemis to have, or the mask he _wishes_ Artemis to have. He lingers over a faun with horns like a devil, a mask of three _commedia_ faces, a drooping clockface; but he returns several times to a mask of a jackal hung low on the wall. It is made of soft black velvet, with wide dark holes for eyes and tall shapely ears and a sleek squared-off muzzle. It looks elegant, sinister.

He can’t seem to set it aside, so he buys it.

For himself, he chooses the simple half-black, half-white mask which signifies the fool in the less sophisticated art of the stage. His role in this particular drama is a secondary one; and the face seems apt, somehow. At times he doesn’t know if he is living a comedy or a tragedy—the tone is light, often bordering the absurd, and there is much pleasure and revelry; but always encroaching is the dark place from which he comes, and for all his tricks and cleverness he continues to outlive anyone he considers worth a damn.

Later, the two masks lie side-by-side on his desk. He keeps pausing from his paperwork to consider them.

There is perhaps some unintended meaning in his choosing an animal for Artemis, and a humanlike face for himself. He can admit that for a while he perceived Artemis as something less than human, as Artemis himself did, and that perhaps it persisted for longer than he recognised—so that he realised, too late, how much suffering Artemis had borne.

He sees Artemis, standing outside Drury’s shop in the snow. Tired: tired of arguing, tired of efforts to change him, tired of life.

The last time Jarlaxle saw Zak alive—at a distance, on an upper balcony of his House, three days before he was killed—his demeanour was like that. For Zak, it had made giving his life for his son almost easy, because by his own calculus he had already ceased to live. Jarlaxle wonders how long it will take for Artemis to go the same way: not dead but not alive; merely empty, and unperishing.

The idea bothers him very much; his mind won’t let it alone, keeps worrying at it.

He is still thinking about it when he retires to bed, and in his reverie he sees Artemis, but his face is the wooden chamfered mask of a nimblewright, with emptiness where his eyes would be, emptiness where his mouth would be, and he is cutting through bodies with that great red blade, so smoothly that from a distance he could almost be human.

A little obvious, Jarlaxle chides himself—but the image lingers.

 

* * *

 

On Deadwinter’s Eve, Jarlaxle watches the sun dissolve into the gilded brim of the horizon in a glory of gold and scarlet and plum, standing on the High Road and looking west down Delzorin Street. When he turns away, he feels a flitter of excitement; there is a figure tucked into the shadows between the tall houses ahead, and advancing toward him.

“Busy tonight,” Artemis says, by way of greeting.

“Most of the nobles will arrive at the ball already _warmed up_ , so to speak. Their usual haunts will do a roaring trade this evening.”

They slip down a scrubby flint path, and emerge on the adjacent street, faced with the darkening contours and bright windows of the noble houses.

The Massalan estate is grander than most, occupying nearly half a block, the manor vast and built of cream stone in the neoclassical Waterdhavian style. A wall runs all around it, at least twenty feet high.

“Climbable,” says Artemis, his hands on his hips, but he glances aside at Jarlaxle.

“Perhaps another time,” says Jarlaxle, and tosses the black cloth circle against the wall. The stone simply gouges open; there is grass on the other side. Jarlaxle picks up a piece of flint from the road’s edge and tosses it through. There is nothing of note.

“So it was you leaving debris in my room,” Artemis says.

“When it comes to your paranoia, one can never be too prepared.” He gestures for Artemis to go first and follows after, reaching behind him to grab a fistful of the fabric at one edge and pull it free, and tucks the hole back into his pocket.

There is a wide flat lawn, and nearer the house a paved area patterned with low shrubs and hedges and stone walls, shadowed by trellises enfolded in vines; and above it a walled terrace. Stone steps lead from the lawn to the terrace, and up to a pair of ornate doors. The garden’s aspect is exposed—sieved through the trees the wind whips across them and Jarlaxle can hear the trellises creaking. There is a thin dust of snow on the grass.

“There will be guards patrolling the grounds,” says Artemis. “Twelve or so, based on the size of the estate and the number in the family’s employ.”

“Then they will be the most immediate obstacle, if we mean to escape quickly.”

“We should deal with as many as possible beforehand.”

“Particularly because we won’t be able to incapacitate the guards _inside_ the house during the ball without someone raising the alarm.”

Artemis nods. “Likely they'll arrive in force while I'm fighting Corylus.”

“Which Corylus may use to his advantage, as he will be known to them, and you will not.”

“Then we'll improvise,” says Artemis, and Jarlaxle smiles.

“Indeed. Ah, did I tell you—Corylus’s letter came with an exploding rune on it. He was _so_ hopeful he might kill you without actually having to fight you.”

“Delightful.”

They progress nearer the house. There is only one guard in sight, wandering complacently near the terrace with a broadsheet under his arm.

“There,” Artemis is pointing—to a balcony on a higher floor, and Jarlaxle sees that the protruding wall bearing it up is covered by a trellis wound with foliage which would make it possible to climb up or down. “That must be the west wing. We can get out to the gardens without being noticed.”

“And if the wing is being guarded?”

“We’ll find another way.”

They stand together on the lawn, in deep bluish darkness, looking up at the illuminated house.

“There must be witnesses,” Jarlaxle says, “otherwise it will seem merely an anonymous murder.”

“It will _be_ an anonymous murder,” Artemis replies. “What matters is that they witness a duel, not an assassination. No one should die but Corylus.”

“So we will need to attract attention.”

A short sound from Artemis. “I doubt that has ever been difficult for you. Besides, having witnesses benefits Corylus as well—very likely he will choose the terrace, which will make the route of escape more straightforward.”

“Have you considered that you might be injured in the fight?”

“No,” says Artemis, flat.

“Corylus will not be a pushover.” This provokes nothing. “Well, it is good you will have me along. After all, he will almost certainly cheat—”

“Of course he will.”

“So we must be prepared for the worst, no?”

“If you say so,” Artemis replies. Looking here and there; thinking, thinking.

“Artemis…”

The wind picks up again, the sound thinning to a howl. It rifles through the grass about them, scattering the dustlike snow.

Artemis says, “You recall, don’t you, that I can’t be killed.”

“I hadn’t forgotten,” Jarlaxle says, softly.

“So there is no need to take extraordinary measures to prevent it.”

Extraordinary measures, Jarlaxle mouths to himself—by which Artemis means he shouldn’t expend the slightest effort to keep him alive. “Is it unpleasant? Being… resurrected?”

“Yes,” says Artemis, and by that single word Jarlaxle knows it is unimaginable.

“Then I think _any_ measures, extraordinary or otherwise, are warranted. You’re not made of stone.”

“I might as well be.”

Just for a moment, Artemis looks very, very tired; and Jarlaxle realises that Artemis isn’t concerned about waste, about conserving their resources. He simply wants none of it—because there is part of him which hopes Corylus might be the one who succeeds.

Jarlaxle knows Artemis would loathe his pity; but a faint, lilting strain takes up a place in the corridors of his chest, which he can only identify as sadness. It isn’t the first time he has looked at someone living and understood them to be only half alive. There was Zak, the last time he saw him. Artemis, on the floor of the crystal shard; after he left Calihye for dead; in the pauper’s graveyard; in the grasp of the Netherese. And yet, Jarlaxle will not believe that Artemis is dead, or should be—he has seen the vibrance in Artemis, the wit and cleverness, the enjoyment of things. He will not bury those until they are gone.

He touches Artemis’ shoulder, if only to reassure himself that Artemis is here with him, living flesh and blood. “I don’t believe that,” he says, “and nor should you.”

Artemis doesn’t look at him, but nor does he brush off Jarlaxle’s hand. There are things to do, the evening is wearing on, and yet the silence continues, and they stand there. The snow flecks Artemis’ cloak and hair.

At last, Jarlaxle shakes himself from the strange reverie. “Now, I believe Jaufre has a costume to collect.”

They slip out the way they came. All being well, their exit from the ball, at least, should present little difficulty; there is only everything else to be concerned with.

Artemis is quiet during the walk to Drury’s shop. Jarlaxle leaves him to his thoughts, striking up conversation only now and then to point out landmarks, beautiful architecture, curiosities. For some reason it matters to him that Artemis should like the city, should see what he sees—a city which thrives, which is infinitely various, which offers everything one could want, even if one doesn’t know what that is.

When they arrive Drury is sitting at his workbench, sipping delicately a cup of tea by the light of a single lamp. It appears his apprentices have all gone home for the evening.

“Ah,” he says. “Gentlemen.”

“You will please forgive our lateness,” Jarlaxle says, “and our terrible lack of pleasantries. Is it all ready?”

“All ready, indeed. Rather a close finish, but I expect you will be pleased.” He rises from his chair and lifts several hangers from the rail, one of the garments sheathed in crepe, and bears them over to Artemis, who seems struck by the sheer weight of cloth in his arms. A slighter pile he gives to Jarlaxle.

Artemis goes behind the curtain for a last fitting, and Drury bids Jarlaxle wait while he unpicks and restitches a seam, adjusts a sleeve, fusses with embroidery. Jarlaxle doesn’t try to steal so much as a glimpse; he waits by the door. This is a surprise he is waiting to give himself.

“Good,” he hears Drury say. “Very good—if I say so myself.”

Artemis emerges in his own clothes, looking a little shocked. He pays the remainder of his bill, and as he turns away from the counter, Jarlaxle spies the other garment over his arm—a simple, elegant shirt in the same grey damask as his doublet—and almost seizes it from him.

“This is silk,” he says, and he is aware that it sounds like an accusation. “Did you buy this?”

“No, I stole it while his back was turned,” says Artemis, with a lift of his eyebrows to Drury, how droll. “Yes, I bought it.”

“There’s yet hope for you, my friend.”

“I hope not.”

 

* * *

 

It wouldn’t do to let Drury see their full disguises, so Jarlaxle takes Artemis to the Seven Masks Theatre, of which he is the oft-absent owner, and slips between one face and another to gain them entry backstage.

The company is in the midst of a performance of _The Merteuil Rose_ , a tale of seduction, cruelty, deceit, and revenge. Voices carry from the stage—they’ve just begun the second act. Jarlaxle gestures Artemis into an empty dressing room, and takes another for himself.

From the sack at his hip he lifts out the new cape, pausing to admire it again, and the rest of his garments. In his pocket he has one of the illusion charms his men use when not aboard the ships, shaped like a Waterdhavian gold coin.

The outer fabric of the cape he turns stark white, and his doublet and breeches are white also; but he keeps the cape’s shocking red inside. Against Erystian’s pale gold hair and white skin the effect is most striking. His boots are black, and he lines Erystian’s eyes with black paint, and his lips in scarlet. With the mask, which stops above his mouth, his face seems delicate, enigmatic. The story writes itself—Erystian hanging upon the arm of his lover, who has come to seek revenge on behalf of his family against the wicked Masked Lord who ruined them.

He can’t resist a dab of lavender scent upon his wrists and throat. When he is pleased with the figure in the mirror, he raps at Artemis’ door.

“Come in.”

Jarlaxle does, but then he stops.

Flattening his wide lapel in front of the mirror, Artemis looks like a prince, like an illustration from a book of Calimshan’s ancient imperial history, drawn with impressionistic strokes of ink. The dark coat couldn’t fit better, cut sleekly across his shoulders and snug against his waist; and the gold buttons and embroidery at the collar lift the warm dusky tones of his skin. The doublet, a bluish woodsmoke grey, is a subtle complement, and in the uncertain light Jarlaxle can see the warp and weft of the damask. There are slashes of black silk at Artemis’ waist, and the dark soft breeches skim very close to his hips and thighs.

Artemis folds his arms. “Don’t stare,” he says, but he is staring at Jarlaxle.

“I shall if I wish,” Jarlaxle says, and he knows it is too bold; but he wants to fix this in his memory with the fidelity of a portrait, he wants to pin Artemis to the wall, and—

A touch of colour is rising in Artemis’ cheeks. “Will it do.”

Jarlaxle casts about for words, finding none; the flickers of lust are most distracting. He thrusts his hand into his pocket and holds out to Artemis another golden charm. “Here—you can use this to change your face, it isn’t dissimilar in function to Agatha’s mask, although unlike that artefact its illusions _can_ be detected—”

Artemis accepts it, and their fingers graze together. Jarlaxle’s thoughts are still cluttered with that touch when Artemis turns back a moment later with the lines of his face subtly altered, and Jarlaxle has to concentrate to recognise him, to see him through the magical veneer. The illusions, for those who know them to be such, appear as an odd double image of the real and the disguise. It pleases Jarlaxle to think that, when the masks come off, the ball guests will see Erystian Demarne and Jaufre de Constantin, and they alone will see each other.

He produces the jackal mask. “Now, put this on.” He watches Artemis turn it over in his hands, and raise it to his face, slipping the black ribbon over his head to fasten it in place. The dark, slim, lavish silhouette and the animal head—Artemis looks like some mythic representation of death itself. What an arresting contrast they will make, deathly and pale.

“Oh, yes.” He is grinning. “Yes, it will certainly do. And I?” He turns about, so that the cape lifts and sways and Artemis can see the very tight, elegant cut of his shirt and breeches. He knows he looks dashing.

Lifting the mask, Artemis’ expression is predictably droll, but his eyes linger on Jarlaxle, and they could almost be said to be lively. “Acceptable, if you don’t disappear against the snow.”

“No danger of that,” says Jarlaxle, “so long as I am close to you.” Artemis wets his lips, and looks away; a hit, Jarlaxle thinks, flushing with victory and desire—a veritable hit.

“Give me your weapons,” he tells Artemis, and Claw goes into his bag of holding, along with other effects, but Artemis has hidden his dagger somewhere on his person. “Well—come, come, our carriage will be here shortly.”

“A _carriage_.”

“Of course! We must do this with all proper pomp and circumstance.”

They go out together, and wait on the theatre steps. Minutes later a wooden carriage veers sharply around the corner and pulls up beside them. The driver, slipping gracefully down from the roof seat, is Soluun. He wears his human disguise and a thick red boxcoat, cutting a convincing figure.

He bows. “Good evening, captain.”

“Soluun—I’d have thought you’d be spending the evening ‘round the docks.” To be blunt, when Jarlaxle passed this task to Valas to give out he considered it grunt work; certainly it’s below Soluun’s station, an errand for one of the greener recuits. This is irregular.

“Not at all,” says Soluun, a little unctuous, opening the door and gesturing them in, “it’s my pleasure to assist.”

As Artemis steps up into the carriage, the lower half of Soluun’s face seems fixed in its faint smile, an expression Jarlaxle can read quite well. That Soluun likely wishes Artemis harm isn’t a surprise; his men have taken against Artemis before, for reasons no less petty. But Soluun wouldn’t dare harm one of Jarlaxle's allies, knowing the consequences would be most severe.

Jarlaxle follows Artemis in, and Soluun closes the door briskly behind them. The carriage is outfitted in navy, with soft leather seats facing forward and backward. He sits opposite Artemis, and he hears the crack of the coachwhip and the carriage judders forward at quite a pace.

“Have you travelled in this fashion before?”

“No,” says Artemis. “And I hope never to again.” He takes off his mask, and brushes aside the curtain to look at the street. Light from the oil lamp gleams over his dark head. There are a few long strands tucked behind his ear. It prompts Jarlaxle to ask:

“May I undo your hair?”

Artemis lets the curtain fall. “Must you.”

How to explain such a whim to a man who seems offended by the very notion that he might be attractive to others? Jarlaxle simply says again, “May I?”

He thinks for a moment than Artemis will refuse, or do it himself, but instead Artemis replies, “As you will.”

Jarlaxle moves to sit beside him, and Artemis turns his back. Gently Jarlaxle pulls the cord down and out of Artemis’ hair, which is thick and very soft against his palm. Being bound has left a kink halfway down the length, and it has a loose wave in it besides.

He hears Artemis’ open-mouthed inhale, and his own breathing is quite short at the sudden intimacy of what he is doing. He is tempted to run his fingers through it, but he settles for sifting it over Artemis’ shoulders.

“Good enough,” he says—it comes out low, hushed. He gives Artemis the hand mirror from his pocket. As Artemis regards his own image, their eyes meet in the glass. There is the anticipation, the poise and readiness Jarlaxle remembers. It gives Artemis' face a kind of completeness.

This is what Artemis thrives upon: nights like this. Despite what he might claim, he needs novelty; he needs to be intrigued, and surprised, and challenged. There are few people alive who can give him that, and fewer still who would _want_ to give him that, who could enjoy his enjoyment. Jarlaxle thinks about taking him across the sea to Lantan, and voyages to Port Nyanzaru and Suzail and Hlondeth and the Sea of Fallen Stars; about Artemis’ villa in Calimport, and his ship in Waterdeep’s harbour, and a hammock on a white warm beach somewhere on the Sword Coast; fine food and wine, and adventure.

He realises that he is no longer thinking about one night together, or even a dalliance of a few tendays. He is thinking about months—years—in the company of one man, and not merely a travelling companion but a—

I will tire of him, he thinks; sooner or later, he will become tedious and uninteresting.

But as Artemis returns the mirror to him, looking at him with steady, expectant eyes, he can’t imagine such a thing.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone not familiar with _Waterdeep: Dragon Heist_ , the inspiration for Jarlaxle's "Zardoz Zord" disguise is, obviously, _Zardoz_ ; [here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRLvIOf6YnQ) the requisite reference. Imagine Jarlaxle doing that accent. 
> 
> Illusion magic is a bit screwed up in D&D from an experiential point of view, so I had to bend the rules.
> 
> Please forgive all Jarlaxle's bad French literature jokes. The work referenced several times is Laclos's novel _Les Liaisons dangereuses_ \--he casts Artemis in the most unlikely part.
> 
> One more part, maybe two? This thing has got really out of hand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes when you edit a chapter to make sure there are no embarrassing spelling mistakes, it... becomes twice as long. 
> 
> Corylus is costumed as [Amaunator](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Amaunator), a sun deity worshipped in Waterdeep (replacing Lathander). His portfolio includes the sun and law-keeping. And, appropriately for this chapter, time. 
> 
> Jarlaxle's description of sexual mores among drow nobility isn't canonical--there's actually not a lot written about how men are allowed to behave, particularly with each other. It seems as though male-male relationships would be tolerated as long as they were discreet; but any men who openly flaunted them in front of women would be doing something threatening to the matriarchal order. 
> 
> The [pavane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavane#Dance) and [galliard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galliard) are Renaissance courtly dances. Most people know the galliard from historical dramas about Tudors. For the Lhestynian waltz, I had in mind some kind of early [Viennese waltz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_waltz).

 

 

By nine o’clock the Massalan estate is thronging.

Their carriage slows and stops, and Soluun opens the door with a courteous little cant of his head.

As he climbs out of the carriage, Jarlaxle stoops to avoid crushing the feather on his hat, and realises he is no longer wearing it. It is a little strange to touch his own smooth head when he can see the illusory tumble of golden hair about his face, and he considers putting the hat back on—but it will be something of a liability in a crowded room.

He brushes himself down and glances back to see Artemis emerge. For a moment Artemis and Soluun stare at each other, and Soluun’s hand drops rather crassly to his belt, where his sword and pistol hang. Then Artemis walks on and comes to Jarlaxle’s side.

Soluun offers a bow, and says quietly, “Enjoy your evening, captain.”

“Thank you, Soluun.” He would rather send Soluun away, but they might have need of him later. “Stay around the corner, would you? Our night may end… rather abruptly.”

“Of course, captain.”

The horses pick up, and the carriage pulls away. From above the Massalan clocktower strikes the hour, each deep toll of the bell resounding through the air.

“Why do your people have pistols,” says Artemis. “I didn’t think you considered them _that_ expendable.”

“Ah, yes,” says Jarlaxle, “the old sort were _notoriously_ bad, we gave up experimenting with those years ago. What you saw there was a Lantanese prototype, quite advanced. They use smokepowder, and the misfire rate is much lower—although they’re not entirely without risk.”

“How lethal are they.”

“That depends on who you’re shooting. But, in general, rather nastily effective.”

“Perhaps a weapon like that should stay on Lantan,” says Artemis, grim.

“Times move ever on, my friend.” He taps Artemis’ elbow. “And on that subject—we should proceed inside, no?”

They have to slip through a deep crowd of onlookers to reach the grand doors. There Jarlaxle produces his invitation, which is inked beautifully with the identity he will be setting on fire tonight. He notes that leaving by the front doors won’t be possible; there are at least a dozen guards hovering about the entrance, all armed with short swords, and plenty more just inside.

“Erystian Demarne—and guest.”

The guardsman looks over the invitation, and then the two of them, and they allow themselves to be checked for weapons. “Very good, sir.” They are ushered in, and he takes Artemis’ arm.

“What are you doing,” Artemis mutters.

“I’m—or rather, _Erystian_ is somewhat well known among Waterdhavian nobility—or notorious, I suppose. If you’re with me, they’ll assume we’re sleeping together. I think, for the purposes of drawing attention, there’s no harm in, ah, encouraging that perception.”

“Is there a real Erystian.”

“No, no. But his career isn’t entirely fabricated.”

“You—”

“It’s quite enjoyable, you know. For three months I starred in a sold-out production of _The Deceived_  in Amn. The reviews were glowing, if I may say.”

“I no longer understand most of the things that come out of your mouth,” Artemis replies. “But I assume you’re content to be rid of the disguise. It’ll be difficult to resurrect after this.”

“I have others,” says Jarlaxle. “And you—have you spared a thought for Jaufre de Constantin, whose good name you’ll be staining?”

Artemis shrugs. “The Lords of Waterdeep have no jurisdiction over Tethyr, and it seems Jaufre will never come here, so he’ll never answer for his supposed crime.”

“But his honour…”

“I don’t care,” Artemis says. “If they’re pointing the finger at Jaufre, they’re not pointing it at my client, which is all I care about.”

“Or at you,” says Jarlaxle, because that seems to him more important than protecting some vengeful southern aristocrat.

“Or at me.”

Jarlaxle nods. “Business is business.”

They come into the main hall, which is lit by hundreds of candles, clustered like votives near the skirting or on the stairs, or floating dreamily overhead. There are motes of gold falling from the ceiling, which is wrought in white and burnished gold, and everything gleams softly as if seen through fogged glass.

Jarlaxle sees the bright flash of a fire-thrower’s staff, spinning wild circuits about her. Above the great density of voices he hears a harpist playing De Folla’s elaborate, shimmering Sonata in D Major.

Magnificent, he thinks. It is a shame that they will bring it to such a bloody end.

About them the guests are a delirium of colour. The masks and costumes are lavish: full silk gowns, velvet robes, masks of thick dark fur or swan feathers, enchanted cloth which glitters in the soft light; and everywhere the wink of jewels at a throat, a hand, a wrist. Waterdhavians take masquerade very seriously, and some of the disguises make the wearer’s identity quite opaque. He sees several tigers, a bear, a djinni with painted blue skin, a harpy, a dryad with their bare shoulders covered in a drapery of jewels like leaves, a fire elemental in a mass of red and yellow silks, a satyr, a crow, a deva with white feathered wings on a wire frame, dragons of all kinds, and a number of devils—which seems risqué when devil worship has been in vogue among the nobility for some years.

He is amused to see a drow mask, the wearer’s eyes enchanted to look crimson, and their silk dress hiding very little. It makes him think of the dances thrown in the humid, dilapidated cellar of a tavern in the slums of Menzoberranzan, everyone disguised so that it couldn’t be discerned who was male or female. The thrill of knowing that such behaviour if discovered would be punishable by whipping or death. His homeland has a reputation for permissiveness, but as he looks at this crowd he thinks his own people intolerably rigid.

Artemis’ mask covers his face entirely, and yet as they go Jarlaxle sees several heads turn to follow them—curious glances, or more than curious. He feels a flutter of delight to have such a fine partner for the drama to come.

 

* * *

 

For the first hour they remain in the hall. Servants dart through the throng bearing gold trays of hors d’oeuvres, caviar and salt fish and meats, and glasses of black icewine. Artemis drinks only a little, roaming away to study the guests or map the many rooms. Jarlaxle enjoys two glasses of the icewine—even if he indulges he’ll be quite sober by midnight—and is beginning on a third when Artemis returns from his latest foray.

“Thann isn’t here yet,” comes quietly, near his ear.

Jarlaxle breaks off listening to gossip about Massalan family intrigue from a young noblewoman with the mask of a snowy owl, and turns toward him. “So far as you know.”

“He will want me to know,” Artemis says.

“Well, he has until midnight, which is a while yet. Have you spied any sweets? I don’t care for saltfish.”

Artemis sighs. “This way.”

They move into the hall to the east, which has arched windows of red and yellow stained glass that are soft and roseate in the candlelight. From the ceiling hangs a vast gossamer net woven thickly with foliage and fresh flowers which seem about to tumble down.

The Bakers’ Guild of Waterdeep are known to be masters of their craft, and Lady Massalan has engaged several of them, as well as their many apprentices and assistants, to create a spread of confections. At the centre of the room is an intricate centrepiece of a woodland in winter, made of sugar. The thickets of branches are like a maze, laden with snow, and the forest floor is dark and detailed: a ring of spotted toadstools, a blackbird, a wolf, a hut of sticks; and in the centre is a figure with yellow hair, hooded red cloak flapping behind as though in flight from something. It is a curiously dark piece.

On another table stands a vast golden bowl piled high with fruits shaped from almond paste and painted, the figs wrinkled and violet, the apples a ripe blushing red. Another bears a vase filled with what appears to be a glorious bouquet of pale pink centifolia roses and crimson-tongued foxgloves and white asters, and Jarlaxle sees a guest costumed as an owlbear pluck out a rose petal and bite into it.

There at least twenty smaller round tables, draped in gold and bearing tiny, elegant delicacies. Guests are milling between them, sampling pastries.

“Ah,” Jarlaxle sighs. After several centuries of rothé and black mushrooms, food on the surface is a constant revelation.

He wanders along, Artemis a disapproving presence at his back, lingering over the spread of chocolate cockle-shells, six kinds of macaron, frilled biscuits filled with marmalade, dark rum-soaked canelés, little stuffed pies, a tall spun sugar pyramid studded with pink profiteroles and painted plums…

“You look like your eyes are going to fall out of your head,” says Artemis.

Jarlaxle reaches for a round pastry dusted with icing sugar and bites into it. It is soft, sweet and tangy, and when his teeth cut through the centre a well of jam bursts out. He licks the sugar from his fingers.

“Wonderful—like those doughy fried pastries Piter used to make, with plum jam, do you remember?”

Artemis’ mouth lifts at the corner. “You ate enough of those I thought I’d have to roll you around the city.”

“I was his sole investor,” says Jarlaxle, “it would have been _irresponsible_ not to test the quality of his wares.”

“So you kept saying. I can only assume the quality was constantly in doubt, as you ate multiples of everything.”

“It was an ongoing process. And it was no charity on Piter’s part, I paid for all of it.”

“Noble of you to not bankrupt your own venture.”

Jarlaxle takes a canelé and sets it on a tiny square plate. “It’s still there, you know—the bakery. I get the summary of accounts every year.” He slices the pastry in half with a fork. “His great-great… well, one of his descendants runs it now. He seems talented, and more savvy than his predecessors. The business is doing very well.”

“The one thing in that wretched kingdom we didn’t leave wasted.”

“I think we achieved plenty. More importantly, it was enjoyable.”

“I’d question your definition of ‘enjoyment’.”

Jarlaxle lifts the fork and tucks one part of the canelé slowly into his mouth. Boozy sweetness, dark and burnt like caramel, floods across his tongue. “Mm…”

Artemis is looking at him, at his mouth, eyes dark and fixed through the mask. Jarlaxle flicks his tongue along his lower lip, and skewers the other half on the tines, and offers it toward Artemis. “Try this, it’s really quite…”

He sees the hesitation—taking the fork out of his hand would seem petty, but nor does Artemis want to capitulate to him; it would be easier to refuse altogether. But Artemis lifts up the lower half of his mask, and lets Jarlaxle slip the fork past his lips. At the sight of it a heat swells up through Jarlaxle’s neck and face.

“I know you liked the ones with rum.”

Artemis’ throat moves as he swallows. “Some of them,” he says, his voice a little lower than before. Reluctantly, “It’s good.”

“Good. What about—” So small a thing; Jarlaxle wants more of it.

Artemis replaces his mask, glances away. “This would be an opportune time to deal with the guards outside.”

The room had seemed to narrow until it contained only them; now it expands, and Jarlaxle hears the flutter of other conversations. “Now?”

“Almost none of the guests are outside, because of the cold, and the guards inside are at fixed posts, they don’t appear to be roaming. It will go unnoticed.”

“Very well.”

They move into a smaller hall to the west, where some dozen guests recline on white chaise longues, drinking and laughing. At the end of it is a staircase leading to the manor’s west wing, which appears darkened and empty.

“Two guards,” Artemis says. “We will be seen.”

“Well, then, if we must be seen—” Jarlaxle sidles closer to him. “Put your arm around my waist, and keep speaking into my ear. Sweet nothings, preferably. ”

Artemis gives him a sharp look, but he does as instructed and they begin up the stairs.

“This many guards will make things more difficult,” he mutters.

“There are more than I expected,” Jarlaxle replies. He needs no great acting skill to play the part of the drunken and besotted when Artemis’ lips are at his ear, and Artemis’ body is pressed commandingly against his side. He feels warm and giddy. “It seems the Massalans have called in some favours. Still, they don’t appear to be highly trained—they’ll only be a problem in significant numbers.”

“All the same, it seems prudent to finish Corylus before they become unmanageable.”

Jarlaxle makes himself stumble, laughing and grabbing at Artemis’ other hip, and he allows Artemis to steer him with a hand on his back, tilting his head so close that from below they will appear to be kissing.

“Any plan beyond that?”

“Things rarely go to plan,” says Artemis, with a shrug.

“Well, fortunately for us,” Jarlaxle says, “there’s no amount of planning or insight that would prepare Corylus for what he is walking into.”

On the darkened landing, Artemis pulls away as soon as they are out of view. Jarlaxle tries not to feel disappointed—it is an improvement on the sullen silences—and follows Artemis down a hall of tapestries and gilded doors until they find the balcony he’d spied from below. Artemis picks the lock on the double doors and they step out into the cold evening.

“There’s a gardener’s shed in the eastern corner,” Artemis says, slipping off his mask and handing it to Jarlaxle. “It may be suitable for stashing them.”

Jarlaxle tucks both masks away. “I have more than enough poison darts for all of them.”

Artemis shakes his head. “Too slow for knocking them out—increases the risk they’ll attract attention.”

“Well, proceed as you please, then.”

They clamber down the trellis. Jarlaxle catches a sweet scent of winter jasmine as they follow the path to the lawns.

“Guard, to the left.”

Artemis is already moving: he slips around a stone archway, seeming to fade where the shadows deepen, and grabs the man from behind, forcing a hand over his mouth. The guard thrashes, tries to kick, but the arm hooked about his neck closes like a scissor blade and he falls slack.

Another guard is within sight of the gardener’s shed, so Artemis takes a wide loop around, slipping between the low hedges, and throttles her unconscious. He makes not a sound. When it is done, Artemis gets the shed’s locked door open and inspects the contents.

“Tight fit,” he remarks. The shed is cluttered with tools and crates and sacks.

Jarlaxle darts each one with sleeping poison, and together they gag and bind the bodies and heft them inside, tucking them awkwardly into the cramped spaces.

Over the next half an hour they incapacitate and remove seven more guards from their posts, proceeding clockwise around the manor. As they near the terrace, which is lit by thickets of candles on the walls, he sees a pair of guards on the lawn not more than thirty feet apart, both holding lanterns. One stands at the foot of the stair.

“Two together,” Jarlaxle whispers, when Artemis rejoins him behind a sculpted rose bush. “I will distract that one, get him away from the house—”

Artemis nods, and sets off right. Jarlaxle goes left. He touches the brim of his hat and summons an image—and when he looks down at himself he sees his pale, bare arms, and a frothy dress of aubergine silk and lace.

“Oh, sir!” He makes his voice high and sweet and breathless, strains of panic, as he steps into plain sight. “Sir, if you please—”

He sees the two guards glance at each other—amused, disbelieving—but he directs all his attention toward the man beside the steps.

“’Tisn’t wise to wander away from the house, m’lady.”

“I wanted to come out for some air, and I… oh, it is so dark, and my little dog slipped his leash, and…”

“Your dog?”

“Ramée, yes, he’s run off, I’m so _terribly_ worried, please—”

“Would you like some assistance looking for him, m’lady?”

“Thank you, yes, I—” He takes the man’s arm and clings to it with both hands, dragging up the guard’s sleeve cuff. “I think he ran off this way…” They turn and begin to walk away from the lights, diagonally across the lawn. He gives Artemis several moments, then slips a dart from his pocket, and in roughly adjusting his grip, pricks the bare wrist for just a moment. “Oh, forgive me—my fingernails—”

“Not at all,” says the guard, gruffly, although it has surely hurt.

They go on walking; a long, long minute passes, and they reach the paved part of the lawn, pausing in front of a stone fountain shaped like a woman with cupped hands. The guard raises his lantern, casting a wide arc of light.

“I can’t see him, m’lady, perhaps you should come—”

“No, no, he _must_ be out here, please—”

Jarlaxle considers another dart, strangulation, a solid bludgeoning with the mace he keeps in his pouch; but then the man begins to list, and stumble, and slump.

“M’lady, I—”

“Sir, are you quite well?”

“I’m not certain, I’m—”

Like a felled tree. Jarlaxle puts out the lantern, and soon enough Artemis appears at his side. The other guard is lying behind the rose bush.

“You see,” says Artemis. “Too slow.”

“Yes, yes, all right. Do you like my dress?”

“Gods.” Artemis pinches at the bridge of his nose, and Jarlaxle laughs. They quickly stash those two, and their lanterns, with the rest.

“Is that all of them?”

“Yes,” says Artemis. He replaces the padlock on the shed’s door so that it appears undisturbed. “For now.”

Once inside the west wing corridor, Jarlaxle turns himself into Erystian, and they put on their masks.

“Hold a moment,” Jarlaxle says. He takes out a prestidigitation charm and casts it upon himself, and Artemis, and the carpet, which is damp and scuffed faintly with dirt. “The illusion charms aren’t stupendously powerful; the less they have to hide, the better.”

He reaches for Artemis. “Now, let us—”

Artemis stiffens as though he wants to step backward, but doesn’t. Jarlaxle catches the stunned look before it shuffles off Artemis’ face, and there’s wanting in it, he’s almost certain. “Jarlaxle—”

“Come now, the appearance is important.”

“You don’t give a damn about the appearance. You’re—”

“If you have another idea, I’m quite open to alternatives.”

“Damn you,” says Artemis, and Jarlaxle must conceal his victorious smile.

He rumples his clothes, and Artemis curves an arm low around his hips. They sidle together down the stairs, inviting a few curious and knowing looks, nothing more. This time, Artemis doesn’t flinch away—he smoothly disengages, but remains at Jarlaxle’s side. Nonetheless, Jarlaxle can feel him simmering.

 

* * *

 

 

As they enter the main hall, he gives Artemis space, and decides to introduce Erystian to every person he recognises, a task made difficult but not impossible by the masks. He doesn’t give Artemis’ name, referring to him only as ‘my guest’, deflecting any direct questions; and at his side Artemis remains silent and enigmatic, which has the intended effect of making him an object of powerful curiosity. Jarlaxle accepts a dozen invitations to dinner, to this soirée and that, knowing that Erystian will be disgraced by the end of the evening. He senses Artemis calming.

A face on the other side of the room catches Jarlaxle’s eye like the glint of a coin. He touches Artemis’ elbow and whispers, “By that very gaudy table, in green and grey.”

“Mirt,” Artemis says.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Half an hour later, while he is conversing with four young nobles who are charmingly thrilled by his occupation, he hears Artemis’ voice by his ear. “Thann,” Artemis whispers. “Near the piano.”

Jarlaxle pretends to laugh as if Artemis has said something amusing, and with a tilt of his head he glimpses the figure near the door to the hall to the east. Corylus Thann’s half mask is black, with golden filigree and a blazing sun on his brow, and sculpted to cover his nose and one cheek—he is Amaunator, how amusing. As Jarlaxle watches he stares into the crowd, his demeanour forcibly neutral.

“I see him. Has he engaged with anyone noteworthy?”

“Brief exchange with Lady Massalan. Half a dozen other nobles, none of them important.”

“Good. The first thing to establish is how many allies he’s brought.” He makes his excuses to the noblemen, and turns back to Artemis. “Now, hold the fort awhile, I’d like to—” He begins in Thann’s direction.

Artemis grabs his shoulder. “What are you doing.”

“Don’t worry, I know better than to give you away.”

“You _cannot_ —”

He leaves Artemis there, with a last clasp of his elbow, and moves through the crowd, which has grown quite raucous.

He understands Artemis’ trepidation, of course; but his work is always, in some way, personal—even if the _person_ he is playing isn’t Jarlaxle. It comes from the earliest days, when he had nothing more to trade upon than his wits and charm. He likes to see the players of the game for himself, to treat with them directly, to understand their moves as they make them. ’Playing with your food’, Kimmuriel called it once. He likes to look people in the eyes before he rewards them, or ruins them.

Corylus stands apart from the crowd. He isn’t a large man, but he draws the eye—his posture almost an exaggeration of how nobles hold themselves, the black and dark gold silk of his cloak very fine. He is an imposing presence; and he has a charismatic face, conscious of its own pedigree: clean shaven, framed to his chin by neat straight hair, with dark arched brows and a faint scar on his chin. The glass of icewine in his hand is still full.

There is a man behind him, watching Jarlaxle approach with more than mere curiosity. Corylus has brought at least one bodyguard.

Jarlaxle slips his detection wand out of his pouch and into his sleeve, and concentrates upon Corylus and his man. After a moment the room appears smudged, like a painting, and then a very bright silvery glow appears at Corylus’s neck and a paler one at his left hip; and another at the right hip of his guard. By the shape he guesses both men are carrying bags of holding; the other item is a mystery, something powerful and likely protective.

Then he blinks it away, and goes forward.

“Master Thann—Corylus, isn’t it?”

“It is.” And Corylus turns to face him, voice a pleasant timbre.

“Erystian Demarne.” He bows low, as if awed by nobility. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“A pleasure,” says Corylus, bloodlessly, and bows.

“I’d heard you rarely attend this sort of thing.”

“It’s rare, yes. I have important things to occupy me.”

He isn’t impolite—his manners are impeccable—but there’s something brusque about how he speaks which makes clear there will be no more conversation than the exchange of pleasantries. His gaze moves, but Jarlaxle need not follow it. He has already discerned it is a servant Corylus is watching—an elf in a plain white mask, russet hair in an elaborate twist so that the tips of their tapering ears can be seen. Corylus isn’t so obvious as to wear his disgust openly, but Jarlaxle can see it pull at his cheek, his lips. He  _despises_ elves; all his manners and gentility are merely the aristocratic veneer on a vicious racist.

“I quite understand, sir.” Usually he plays Erystian with a modicum of smarts, a certain shrewdness which comes from the thrust and scuffle and artifice of theatre life; but now he wishes to convince Corylus he is quite harmless, as stupid as he is lovely. Corylus’s eyes are a watery, ethereal blue, and Jarlaxle meets them with a vapid sort of look. “But you came tonight?”

“For business, I’m afraid, more than pleasure.”

“Which is wine, is that right?”

“Yes, wine,” says Corylus, lying smoothly, “my family are the most successful winemakers in the city.”

“How wonderful! Are your vineyards far afield?”

This is pure curiosity—Artemis referred to “Athkatla” as the authority his client would appeal to regarding Corylus’s misdeeds, which places the vineyards somewhere in Amn. If Corylus’s property will shortly be for sale, it wouldn’t hurt to know the location.

“East Amn,” says Corylus. “Some superb estates north of Lake Esmel.”

“I must confess I know little about wine, but I’m sure it is delicious.”

“And what is it you do?”

He smiles, as cheerful as he can manage. “I am an actor, sir.”

“Charming.” Another of those little expressions, and now he knows what Corylus thinks of him: some young, empty headed creature of no good breeding or importance, a desperate social climber.

If you but knew what I am, Jarlaxle thinks.

He could do it now: slip a dagger between Corylus’s ribs and disappear into thin air, leaving him dead on the floor. It would be, in one respect, much cleaner, taking Artemis out of harm’s way. It would also be a terrific blunder: Artemis would resent it fiercely, particularly if he knew Jarlaxle’s reasons.

He gestures to the man stood behind Corylus. “Is this your—a family member, or a—”

“Personal guard.”

“Oh!” Jarlaxle makes a show of looking this way and that. “I thought these things were—should I be worried, master Thann?”

“No, certainly not.” He is good, Jarlaxle must admit: he has a winning smile—such bright teeth—and he lies very well. “It behooves me to be cautious, that’s all.”

“Ah, of course.” He’d heard Corylus was paranoid; but tonight, it seems, Corylus doesn’t wish to be seen with six bodyguards because it would look like weakness—like fear. “Lamentably, this fair city is never entirely safe.”

“Indeed.”

“Well, a good evening to you, sir. I hope it is—fruitful.”

“It shall be,” says Corylus, and he puffs up a little. Confident, Jarlaxle thinks, but not entirely. “A good evening to you.”

Jarlaxle departs with a bow, smiling to himself. He has the man’s measure now.

He finds Artemis in the crowd, moving through the press of bodies so easily and subtly that Jarlaxle’s eye passes over him more than once. That won’t do, Jarlaxle thinks.

“There you are,” he says.

Artemis wears a look which says he’d like his hands to be around Jarlaxle’s throat. “Did you find out anything of use, while you were almost blowing our cover?”

“He seems clever enough, except when his pride gets the better of him. He’s rather confident that he’s going to kill you. His hatred of nonhumans isn’t resentment or jealousy, it’s revulsion—which is interesting.”

“Anything else.”

“In his arrogance, he has _chosen_ not to bring his full contingent of bodyguards. He has only one with him.” He tells Artemis about the magical items he’d seen on Thann and his guard.

“I saw the guard,” says Artemis. He holds up a hand. “No gloves, no calluses on his hands, only a burn on his left palm.”

“Mage?”

“Probably.”

“Interesting choice. He’s full of bluster—but he must be rather nervous.”

“Or he expects Jaufre to cheat.”

“Well,” Jarlaxle says, “it isn’t honour that steers him. If he could, no doubt he’d have his man blast you to smithereens now and avoid all that risk and spectacle. But, happily, he hasn’t any idea who you are.”

“No thanks to you.”

“My friend, I’m only trying to assist—”

Artemis’ voice is flat, furious. “If by chance you’ve forgotten, let me remind you—this is _my_ contract, this is _my_ work. If I tell you not to approach the man I’m going to kill, you stay away from him.”

“Of course, but—”

“Do you understand.”

They stare at each other, as the clock tolls for half past ten.

“Yes. I understand.” Jarlaxle tries not to sound resentful, without success. “I’m not a novice at this, you know.”

“Perhaps not, but your methods are directly antithetical to mine.”

“Hardly. Besides, it would behoove you to use some of my methods now.”

Artemis folds his arms. “Do tell.”

“Well,” says Jarlaxle, “while we wait for the appointed hour, we should convince the rest you’re worthy of their interest when it comes.”

“What does that mean.”

“I’m sure you already know—come on.”

From the ballroom the music has grown louder and faster. The crowd is wending slowly toward it. Jarlaxle lets himself be carried along, but Artemis remains in place.

“Forget it.”

“This is a ball,” Jarlaxle says, “what did you imagine the guests would be doing all these hours?”

“Getting uproariously drunk.”

“Well, you aren’t incorrect, but that’s certainly not all they’ll be doing.”

“Jarlaxle—”

“I do understand your objections, my friend. On the other hand, consider—the more attention we can attract the better, yes?”

“Yes,” Artemis says, but it is through clamped teeth.

 

* * *

 

In the ballroom the light of the chandeliers seems to shimmer, diffuse, as if through a diamond, and the wooden floor has been polished so that it is almost a mirror. There is a full orchestra playing music for a quicker-than-usual courtly pavane, and many pairs of dancers moving about the floor, some already stumbling with drink.

As they are watching the couples, Jarlaxle says, “If it is truly hateful to you, you can stop at any time.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that.”

“Have you danced before?”

“I was taught,” says Artemis, but doesn’t elaborate.

When the dance finishes, and a waltz strikes up, he steers Artemis by the shoulder to an empty part of the floor, and turns him so they are facing each other.

Almost instinctively Jarlaxle moves to lead. He considers himself quite proficient in most of the dances Waterdhavians favour, however complex or crude, and he can correct Artemis better from that position. And he is still bristling from Artemis’ reprimand.

Their first attempt is poor—and the next. Artemis has no trouble with the footwork, can learn the steps as soon as he sees them, but he resists Jarlaxle constantly, resists being moved and turned; and it is obvious that it is because he is discomfited by the position he is assuming. Throughout he tries to keep Jarlaxle’s body at arm’s length, and it seems more like a fight than a dance.

Jarlaxle opens his mouth to counsel him, to encourage him to bear it; after all, Artemis has borne far, far worse. It is only a dance.

But he is thinking of Artemis in the light and gloom of Drury’s shop. _You seem to feel a great liberty to go against my wishes_ , Artemis said. It is only a dance, but it seems to capture how things between them continue to go awry. Artemis perceives so many of Jarlaxle’s efforts to help him as being forced, controlled, overruled; and it has only bred his resentment, again and again. _Like a child, or a pet_ , Jarlaxle hears, and almost winces at it. That accusation has bothered him more than he wishes to consider, because it is so wide of the mark and yet so difficult to refute.

Many times, he knows, he hasn’t treated Artemis as an equal: because he was distrustful, because he was arrogant, because he couldn’t stomach a human getting the better of him. This is only a dance, it is trivial; and yet, undeniably, there is in him some resistance to being led—in any sense—by a human. By _this_ human, in particular.

He lets his hand fall from Artemis’ waist.

To concede to Artemis will cost him nothing. Nothing except his pride, of which there is—as Gromph so often likes to tell him—always a surfeit.

“If you wish to lead,” he says, “you may lead. You need only say so.”

Artemis’ eyes narrow; he shifts his feet, radiating suspicion. “I’m surprised you would let me.”

“Not at all,” says Jarlaxle, yet it is obvious to both of them he isn’t being contrary. “I’ve been known to follow on many an occasion. But... I have also been known to make incorrect assumptions—very rarely, you know, but…”

“Shut up,” Artemis says, barely more than a murmur. “Very well, then—I am leading.” His fingertips glance against Jarlaxle’s waist; his hand settles there.

“Then you’re going to have to let me nearer,” Jarlaxle says, and daringly he pulls them together, his chest coming up flush to Artemis’ chest, “else the whole endeavour falls apart, you see.” He feels his partner’s tense exhale, shoulders pulling back as if to protest; but Artemis doesn’t attempt to loosen the hold. His grip is warm around Jarlaxle’s fingers.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I prefer ‘persistent’. Or ‘patient.’”

“Do I require so much of your _patience_ ,” Artemis murmurs, a little prickly.

Jarlaxle smiles. “Only as much, I think, as I require of yours.”

A soft huff from his partner; but he knows without seeing it that Artemis is smiling.

He is scarcely aware of the other dancers—they are merely a dazzling backdrop, flashes of colour turning like the inside of a kaleidoscope. There is the music, and the sequence of the dance, and Artemis, who seems to have settled for bemusement as they move about the floor, but is perfectly skilful in this—it is curious, Jarlaxle thinks, how often the skillset of an assassin overlaps with that of a courtier.

He will admit that occasionally he is leading from the back, as it were: shifting his weight to steer them toward the centre of the floor, pushing with his hips and shoulders to adjust Artemis’ posture. But for the most part he follows, enjoying the movement and the closeness of Artemis’ body, and the attention they are drawing.

At a pause in the music they both see Thann come into the ballroom—plainly, he is seeking his opponent. Artemis says, darkly, “Perhaps I should just stab him in the throat now and be done with it.”

“The guards will surround you the moment you do,” says Jarlaxle, but he is pleased that he isn’t alone in having such an impulse. “No, we must be patient—which I happen to know you have in great stores, hm?”

“Evidently.”

The next dance is difficult; a Lhestynian waltz, named after the place where it was supposedly invented. It is looser than other dances, with fewer steps, but it calls for constant turning, with brief steps to change direction. The music’s tempo is very quick, the turns and changes dizzying, and when another couple swerves toward them they stumble together, and Artemis swears as Jarlaxle treads on his foot, but doesn’t drop the hold.

“Gods—you’re heavier than you look.”

Jarlaxle beats at his shoulder. “Is this because of the pastries? Besides, I believe you can _feel_ ,” with some emphasis, “that I am in no sense heavy.”

“Defensive,” Artemis taunts. “Have your lieutenants started to comment?”

“They’re a fearless lot,” Jarlaxle says, “but not that fearless, should the day ever come. Keep up!” The music pulls them into the next wild sequence.

When the dance comes to an end, Jarlaxle laughs to see the other couples bending and fanning themselves. Even Artemis is breathing a little heavier, and although he is still pretending to be annoyed his eyes through the mask have that gleam in them, the relish of a challenge.

The next dance is a galliard, which Artemis professes to hate, so they sit it out. Between them Jarlaxle still feels a degree of tension, of hazard, but Artemis seems a little more at ease.

Jarlaxle finds a servant with a carafe of water and returns with two full goblets. On his way across the ballroom he overhears all manner of talk: jokes, gossip, complaint, heated arguments about city politics, musing about the ballroom’s architecture, business negotiations, and flirtation of the subtle and not so subtle kind. Plenty of people, it seems, have noticed the unusual presence of Corylus Thann; and just as many have noticed Erystian Demarne and his mysterious partner.

When he reaches Artemis he hands over one of the goblets. “That—gargoyle, I think it is meant to be—just said something exceptionally crude about you.”

“Lovely,” says Artemis, lifting his mask a little to drink, and that glimpse of his face is like part of a beautiful artwork seen through a curtain. “The aristocracy of Waterdeep are nothing if not genteel.”

“I’m not sure I’d like to see the resulting creature. A jackal and a gargoyle.”

“Then I’d recommend not looking to your left.”

Jarlaxle finishes and sets down his goblet, and lets his gaze wander across. “What is that planetar doing to that—is it a polar bear?”

“You tell me—I thought polar bears were your area of expertise.”

“When I mentioned animal handling,” Jarlaxle says, “that wasn’t what I had in mind.” The sound of Artemis’ quiet laugh is warmer and fuller without the mask.

They watch the galliard, which is more exuberant than he has seen it performed before and, he must admit, quite ridiculous. Beside him, Artemis looks wryly amused.

“Not so terrible, hm?”

“Not my preferred past time,” says Artemis. “Whoever said fighting was like dancing didn’t take into account the tediousness of the upper classes.”

“And what class would you consider yourself to be?”

“I’m sure they’d consider me a common upstart,” Artemis says. “Regardless of wealth or anything else.”

That isn’t what they think when they look at you, Jarlaxle thinks; but he keeps it to himself.

“Do drow have—something like this?”

Jarlaxle fidgets a little with his doublet, then flattens his hands together. “Well, the nobility love an occasion, the more decadent the better—with dancing, and mingling, and fine food. But it would be the women alone—no men would be permitted to attend, unless it’s a certain _kind_ of occasion, and those are usually religious in nature. Only commoners mix—I went to some rather degenerate festivities in my youth, lots of liquor, loud drum music, illicit substances, and truly an excessive amount of sex…”

“This must seem tame by comparison.”

“Yes, and no. There are different customs and conventions, different sexual mores. The men here aren’t expected to grovel and scrape, or service the women sexually when it’s demanded—that’s a refreshing change. And two men openly engaging in licentious conduct would get a dozen lashes for the first offence; and if it were a repeat offence, they might be castrated.”

“Why?”

“Because male pleasure isn’t only irrelevant—it’s indecent, and offensive to Lolth. Men exist to serve.” The spectre of that place enters him, as ambient and cold as the shadow of a raincloud, and he must cast it away. “So, to me, things like this seem radical indeed.”

Artemis is looking at him; even without the mask, Jarlaxle thinks that he wouldn’t be able to read Artemis’ face at all.

The music ends with a flourish, and the dancers mill about in readiness for the next. Jarlaxle rises eagerly. In his enthusiasm, he wants to simply corral Artemis onto the floor; but instead he holds out his hand. “Another?”

“If we must,” says Artemis, but he is barely trying to sound apathetic. He takes Jarlaxle’s hand and allows Jarlaxle to pull him to his feet, and they weave across the floor, drawing more glances and stares.

As they face each other Jarlaxle says, “Make the next one look like the dance of a man about to go to his god.”

“Is that a preference you have.” It takes him a moment to realise what Artemis is doing, so unexpected is it.

“Deathly looking humans? Not a general preference, no—it’s rather specific.”

This is a risk, such obvious flirtation; but Artemis laughs, low. “How you flatter me.”

“I need not flatter you. Half the people in this room are staring at you.” The next dance begins, a slower waltz, and he pulls Artemis into the closed position.

“At _us_ , I think,” says Artemis. “So long as they are still staring when I run Corylus Thann through with a sword, I don’t care.”

“Is this your manner of bedroom talk?”

“Does this look like a bedroom.”

“Anything can be a bedroom if one is determined,” says Jarlaxle, letting his voice become deeper and suggestive.

Artemis’ grip on his waist tightens, a warning. “Jarlaxle…”

The pricking in his breast again. Jarlaxle sighs. “You have someone else, yes, I—”

“It isn’t that.”

He doesn’t dare to hope. “Then—because I’m male?”

“No,” says Artemis sharply; but he amends: “That is… complicated.”

“Then what? What is this tremendous impediment which so forbids you from enjoying yourself?”

They have slowed, falling out of time with the music. The other dancers sweep and turn around them. “It would be disastrous,” says Artemis.

“Why?”

“Because of all your attempts to shape me, _fix_ me…” There is such frustration in Artemis’ voice, the old bitterness. “It would be like that again, and worse. And eventually you would tire of it—”

“I have never tired of you.”

“You will,” Artemis says. “You tire of everyone. It is how you are.”

“We are not speaking about everyone, or just anyone, we are—”

“It doesn’t matter. You can’t help yourself.”

Jarlaxle stiffens his back. “You said you disliked being treated like a child, or a pet—well, you might consider that I don’t enjoy it any more than you do.”

“Am I wrong.”

Instead of the glib little retort on his tongue, he hesitates, against his better judgement. “I don’t know.”

“Hm,” says Artemis; and Jarlaxle can’t discern at all whether he is pleased or displeased.

They lapse into silence. At last Jarlaxle’s thoughts get the better of him: “You were sincere—the things you said at Drury’s shop?”

“Yes.”

“Did you also—” This is verging into difficult territory. “Was that how it seemed, when we were travelling together?” It is easier, somehow, to speak of these things when they aren’t looking at each other.

“At times.”

“Why did you not say anything?”

“I wasn’t willing to discuss it with you. It seemed it would only give you ammunition.”

“But you can now?”

“The worst you could do to me,” says Artemis quietly, “you’ve already done. Perhaps it was accidental, perhaps it was well meant—in one sense, it hardly matters. It’s done.”

“I see.” Jarlaxle doesn’t expect the odd thickening in his throat, the dark clotted feeling in his chest.

“That doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate being misled, or manipulated. I’m not one of your lackeys, or something for your amusement.”

“I’ve never thought of you as such.”

Were they face to face, Artemis would be giving him a hard look. “You have, often. I wonder if it is because I’m human.”

“No,” says Jarlaxle, and he has to suppress his cringing at a shot so near the mark. “No—you must know that I don’t see you that way. I respect you greatly.”

“Do you.” The calmness of Artemis’ voice is like a warning. “You don’t treat me thus. You simply—forge ahead, with whatever notion is in your head, whatever whimsy or calculation. Even when it is my _mind_ you are toying with, even—”

“I know,” says Jarlaxle, “I know.”

He has always been woeful at making amends, hating to apologise; has always avoided it, preferring to avoid the sort of relationships in which such wounding might be possible. But he has wounded Artemis, it seems—many times, and deeply.

“I regret that I…” He sighs. “That I have been presumptuous. It wasn’t my—I didn’t set out to go against your wishes, or disregard them… But I see now that I—”

He can’t fathom why it is so difficult to say what he means; usually words run off his tongue like music.

“ _Vith_ ,” he mutters, and tries again: “My intent all those years ago was—only ever to do what I thought you… what I thought would _help_ you, would give you some manner of peace, or catharsis, because I—” It is too much, he can’t say it. “But I know that I caused you—that as a consequence, you were—and I couldn’t—”

It is a bright, crisp, terrible slice of memory: the paupers’ graves cast little oily shadows, and the sunlight is pure sweltering white, and Artemis turns and walks away from him. He falters again.

“There have been times that I wanted to tell you—” Tell you everything, he thinks; everything, which would be unconscionable. “Tell you that I am—”

But he can’t—the words are gone, and the momentum. He lists into silence.

The music rises; Artemis doesn’t speak. Jarlaxle can’t see his face—only the still edge of his mask, the light sliding down his hair.

“Artemis?”

Under his hand, Artemis’ shoulder trembles a little.

Then Artemis turns his face back, and Jarlaxle realises that he is _laughing_. He wants to shove Artemis away, wants to smother the smile from that clever face behind the mask, which he knows so well; but he is struck, at the same time, by the most terrible wave of fondness.

At last Artemis subsides, clears his throat. He is still smiling, but it is a thinner, bittersweet sort of smile. “You can stop. I don’t want your apologies, particularly not if _that_ is the calibre I can expect.”

“Then you forgive me.”

“I don’t know.” These changes in Artemis’ mood are almost too mercurial to keep up with.

“All right.” There is more to say, much more, but there isn’t enough time, and they are being watched from all sides. “Well—whatever you decide, whatever will be the,” he is trying to brace himself for disappointment, “the manner of our acquaintance from now on, I will… refrain from trying to change you, or interfere with you.”

“Truly.”

“Yes. _Except_ ,” and he sees Artemis wince, but he must say it, “except, if you will live many more years—and it seems that you will—I would have you _enjoy_ them, rather than merely survive them.”

Before Artemis can reply, he thinks to add, “If you will permit me to do so, that is.”

“Enjoy them,” Artemis repeats.

“Yes.”

“With you, you mean.”

“Yes, _abbil_. Who else?”

Artemis is staring now; his eyes dark, lambent, through his mask. “Indeed,” he murmurs.

And he slips his hand from Jarlaxle’s, and lifts up the lower edge of the jackal mask, and kisses him.

It is even better than the last, because this time Artemis is willing—more than willing, taking Jarlaxle’s jaw in his gloved hand, and wetting Jarlaxle’s lip with his tongue as he makes shallow forays into Jarlaxle’s open mouth. It is so good a shiver runs over Jarlaxle’s scalp, and he folds his arm around Artemis’ neck and sucks at his lip and tongue. Around them the dance goes on, but Jarlaxle wants none of it, wants only this peculiar, clever, vicious, glittering man.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he breathes, lifting Artemis’ mask a little higher. There is that lovely colour over Artemis’ cheekbones, and the shine of his lips.

“You do recall why it is we’re here.”

“Perfectly, but this is far more interesting.”

“I have to kill him tonight,” Artemis says, and he sounds regretful.

And so he will leave, Jarlaxle thinks, for a decade, or two, or—

“Well, then,” he says, and he kisses Artemis again, lingeringly, feeling aglow and yet melancholy, “at least there’s still a little time.”

As if to mock him, the clock begins to strike. It is midnight.

“Come,” Artemis says, breaking off. Through the mask Jarlaxle can see the set calm hardness of his face.

“You do not have to go through with it.”

“I know that,” says Artemis, but his expression doesn’t change. Once he has decided to do something, he will see it through. It is the same obstinance that caused him such trouble with Drizzt—and Jarlaxle finds himself thinking about that duel inside the crystal tower, and the kinetic barrier which kept Artemis alive. He wishes he had Kimmuriel here now; but the two of them together will have to be enough. 

He takes Artemis’ hand and touches his lips to Artemis’ knuckles, enjoying the widening of Artemis' eyes. Then he manoeuvres the duelling sabre from the pouch on his belt, and gives it over. Artemis straps it on slowly and in plain view, and stalks across the ballroom floor to throw open the doors which lead to the terrace.

All around the room, Jarlaxle sees nobles looking at them—whispering, pointing. They certainly have an audience.

Artemis goes out, pausing to take a burning taper from a windowsill. As Jarlaxle moves to follow, a young woman in turquoise satin approaches him.

“Sir—what’s going on?”

He is out of sorts; he must pull himself together. He puts on his most brilliant smile.

“A duel of honour, my lady. In the gardens.”

Then he hurries to follow Artemis—the dark shape, the flicker of light—down the stair and onto the flat paving stones. Soon others emerge from the house, trailing them down in twos and threes, until a small crowd has assembled, chattering and jostling and shivering in the cold. A light snow is falling. 

Artemis tugs off his mask and throws it aside. His face is  _vivid_ , like the only living soul among ghosts, and his eyes deep and canny. And when he looks at Jarlaxle, he smiles just a little. 

The last chime of midnight strikes. As if cued, Corylus appears, silhouetted against the bright doorway, and begins to descend. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [_The Deceived_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deceived_Ones) is probably the primary plot inspiration for Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ , which I'd consider the most Jarlaxle-esque of the Shakespearean comedies. 
> 
> Jarlaxle's 'dog', Ramée, is named after [Ouida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouida), the English writer of novels about swashbuckling.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments and encouragement so far : )

“Thann,” Artemis says.

“De Constantin.”

Jarlaxle watches Corylus take in his accuser. He had thought Corylus might wish to talk, or rage, or bloviate; but it is clear Corylus deems ‘Jaufre’, as a mixed blood, not even worth the expending of breath. He considers it an insult to have to answer this summons.

Instead Corylus turns and addresses the crowd:

“This man you see before you, Jaufre de Constantin, is a criminal!” He jabs his finger in Artemis’ direction with the imperiousness of a matriarch handing down punishment. “He is, like the rest of his family, greedy, corrupt, and vicious. They stole from from the citizens of this city, and aided the gangs who threaten our peace and safety! Years ago I exposed their misdeeds to the authorities, and now this man comes for revenge!”

He paces slowly across the terrace, his head moving this way and that to take in all those assembled. “I have answered his challenge—not out of pride, but love for this city, and hatred of those who would steal from us, betray us, and threaten what we hold dear!”

There are cheers and shouts from the crowd. Many are on his side—some seem to know him, others are swept along by his rhetoric. Undeniably he is compelling in full flow, smiling and energetic, almost as if he believes his own falsehoods; and he looks every inch the Waterdhavian aristocrat. Artemis, by contrast, is beautiful but foreign, known to no one, and his eyes look dark and terrible, and he is content to let Corylus characterise their quarrel.

The nobles have formed a rough oval around the two men. They are excited, Jarlaxle realises—excited to watch one of these men kill the other, regardless of the stakes of the fight or what is being fought for. It isn’t the courtly ritual—it is the bloodsport. Even in Menzoberranzan the nobility hide their barbarism better than this. Yet the presence of so many spectators may force Corylus to observe some sort of decorum. Duelling is still held sacred by the nobility, and to be seen cheating at it would be indecent indeed.

“You,” Corylus gestures to a portly man in the crowd. “Will you adjudicate, master…”

“Nandar,” says the man, pressing his hands together as if in rapture. “Yes, yes, certainly.” He comes forward, pausing to usher nobles behind the imaginary lines of the fencing piste. In the crowd, Jarlaxle sees Corylus’s man looking on.

Corylus draws his sword. The sabre is the classical weapon of ritual combat among Waterdhavian nobility, and Jarlaxle can detect nothing unusual about the blade, it appears ordinary. Masks are optional for mortal combat, although he understands it is considered bad form to stab one’s opponent in the eye.

The judge looks between the two of them. “A fair fight, gentlemen. No weapons but the sword. No contact below the belt.”

“No seconds, no tricks, no surrender,” says Artemis. His blade is in his hand but Jarlaxle doesn’t recall seeing him draw it.

“Agreed,” says Corylus, and smiles. “It will be a pleasure to put down such scum as you.” He has no notion that he is standing in front of perhaps the most dangerous assassin on the continent.

To the crowd the judge calls, “I will ask you, please, to observe the perimeter.”

Artemis tucks one hand behind his back and slips into the stance, blade ready before him. Jarlaxle presses down what are, given the circumstances, entirely inappropriate thoughts.

“En garde!” The judge steps back.

Corylus’s boasting about town wasn’t hollow: he is very good. Slower than Artemis, certainly, but stronger. He springs forward before the first syllable has died in the air, his saber slashing left and right, and the force in each cut is formidable. Jarlaxle winces at the ferocity; but it’s quite controlled—Corylus pulls his tirade up short to knock aside the opportunistic thrust of Artemis’ blade aslant his own.

Yet Artemis is quite calm as he parries from side to side—tierce, quarte, tierce—and concedes a little ground, until his quick, low riposte forces Corylus to reshuffle his feet in retreat. He doesn’t want to tip his hand too early; Jarlaxle can see him pulling up short, leaving openings he might have taken.

There are several bouts of this, each brutally quick but inconclusive, one or the other retreating out of reach. Then Corylus loses patience, and makes a sudden forward rush. He sweeps his blade up with point down to block Artemis’ thrust at his middle, and parries the next high cut with such vehemence that he throws Artemis’ blade wide; and the next wild arc of his sword draws a thin line above Artemis’ clavicle.

“Touché!”

Corylus grins, canting backward with a twirl of his sword. “Surrender isn’t acceptable, of course, but if you would like to—”

He doesn’t finish the gibe, because Artemis steps into close quarters at such speed that Corylus’s reaction comes late and desperately, and Artemis’ sabre glances past his blade, turning it aside, and slices across his shoulder, slitting his cloak and sleeve. Jarlaxle expects to see a wound but there is scarcely a mark, though it seems no one else has noticed.

Artemis dodges the next strike, and when he lunges again his blade lashes under Corylus’s guard to catch his arm, sending Corylus skittering backward. They come at each other again, only for Artemis to erupt into a chain of slashes at Corylus’s head which drives Corylus almost to the wall; then a feint, and a low cut to Corylus’s side, drawing a hiss.

He is taunting Corylus now, scoring hit after hit while taking none, making Corylus seem lumbering and clumsy. Playing with his food, Jarlaxle thinks. Meanwhile the risk in Corylus’s approach is becoming evident: Corylus is tiring, while Artemis seems as if he could go forever. The next powerful cut Corylus musters, inside and high, Artemis sidesteps entirely, and the hilt of Artemis’ blade smashes into his face with a thick crunch, jarring his head back. Again the impact is dulled—it should have shattered Corylus’s nose—but Corylus looks dazed as he stumbles away from Artemis’ cut towards his stomach. Artemis doesn’t pause, cutting high and then low, hounding Corylus backward. He gets another hit, and another, and another, and ducks to avoid Corylus’s clumsy leftward hacking riposte, then rises in a ready stance. This might be the last bout.

But Corylus, panting, doesn’t come on; he glances aside at his man. And Jarlaxle can see the mage’s lips are moving: he is casting, fixed upon Artemis. Jarlaxle knows there are few spells that might tip the balance without being noticed, and it isn’t very difficult to guess what Corylus might try. He begins to push carefully through the crowd, slipping under elbows and stepping over feet, trying not to draw Corylus’s notice; but Corylus is eyeing his supposed victim. The judge, it seems, has noticed nothing.

The incantation finishes. Jarlaxle can’t get there in time, can’t shout Artemis’ name for fear of breaking Artemis’ cover—Artemis won’t forgive him—so he can only watch as Artemis falters, breaking off his advance, and his face becomes strained. As Jarlaxle had thought, the mage is trying to seize control of him; but he is fighting it, shaking with effort, a muscle fluttering in his jaw. They don’t know that Artemis is experienced in resisting magic such as this. And yet Corylus doesn’t stop pressing, and Artemis is forced to step backward, again and again.

The crowd is muttering, shifting; Jarlaxle can feel the foment around him. They know something is amiss.

The judge begins, “Gentlemen—”

No time to wait for the fight to be stopped. Jarlaxle struggles near the mage, thumbing a sleep poison dart from his belt. Drawing his crossbow to fire it would be too obvious, so he swerves behind the man and hurls the dart, and it sticks in the flesh just above his collar, difficult to see unless one were looking for it. The mage twitches, and slaps at his punctured throat.

“What—help!”

At that shout Corylus looks up. Jarlaxle ducks his head, already several feet away. He sees Corylus advance, but now and then look back at his man.

Then, at last, the mage’s knees begin to bend, and the mage rubs stupidly at his face, and drops to his knees.

The spell breaks. Artemis straightens, and parries Corylus’s next high thrust for his face so ferociously it almost throws the sabre from Corylus’s hand. Corylus retreats, and his wild gaze roams over the crowd and fastens on Jarlaxle.

“Murderer!” he shouts, pointing in Jarlaxle’s direction. “There, seize him!”

Ah, Jarlaxle thinks. This will make things _very_ difficult. 

There is uproar. From the house a number of guards have appeared—Jarlaxle counts ten, perhaps twelve—and he must draw them toward him to keep their attention away from Artemis. Helpfully, they are already running straight for him.

Still, he knows he can turn the crowd’s presence into an advantage. Falling to a crouch, with the ring on his left hand he creates another image of himself—he does look _very_ dashing—and sends it charging off toward the guards. Some of the guards rush to chase it, and he draws out his charred wand and lights up another group with illusory fire, smirking a little at their shouts and cries as they stop to flap at themselves and roll on the ground.

A guard wades into the crowd, which is now jostling and shouting. Jarlaxle takes from his pouch the perfect copy of the ruby Regis stole all those years ago, and skulks around to appear suddenly before his quarry. Quickly he swings the stone from its golden chain before the unsuspecting face, so that the facets glint in the candlelight. As the guard is ensnared his face slumps into that sleepy, reverent look.

“Your comrades have all gone quite mad,” Jarlaxle says, “I think you should subdue them.”

“Yes,” the man mutters, “quite mad.” And he turns and runs toward several of the other guards, and throws a punch at the first guard he reaches.

Amid the merry chaos, Jarlaxle brings his image back toward him, ducking low behind a gaggle of panicked nobility, and sends it off the other way. Some of the guards fall for the trick again—how amusing—which draws them off and gives him a little time to prepare for the others. He murmurs the word for his granite ring and the peculiar sensation ripples through his skin, as though it is thickening and tightening.

Then they come on, and he exhausts his supply of poison darts putting them down; but while they are succumbing he is forced to take out his mace and sword and fend them off. “Definitely too slow,” he mutters to himself.

He remembers Artemis’ insistence that none but Corylus should die, which is certainly a handicap—as more guards close in, he laments that he can’t simply set them on fire or blast them with lightning. His blade rings and scrapes against their short swords, one parry after another; he puts a man down with a flaunting mace blow to the temple, and trips another guard, dropping him hard to the ground and kicking him in the back of the head. When they press in a little too close he pinches his emerald ring between thumb and finger and utters the command word, and before he can dwell on the cold sensation of being immaterial he uses slips wraithlike between their swords.

No doubt they will wonder where 'Erystian' obtained all this magic; still, Artemis cannot expect him to use _entirely_ mundane means. 

He’d noted the frightened reaction of one sallow-faced guard to the fire, and as the man comes toward him he conjures the bright lapping flames yet again. The man flinches, though he knows they aren’t real, and Jarlaxle uses that moment’s opportunity to crash the mace into his stomach and then his shoulder, knocking him down.

But others are moving to flank him. He parries a sword sweep toward his face, turning and darting and flourishing his blade. His blood is up; this is the instinctual state which slows all motion until attacks seem like _sava_ moves, like puzzles to be solved. He uses his gold ring to evade a slash from his left, then vaults over a guard's sweeping club with a brief push of levitation and staggers him with the mace. He swerves another sword thrust, parries the next in a tight arc, and pulls out a wooden wand wrapped in bandages and points it at the largest of his attackers, who goes rigid and then begins to cower and shrink away from him.

“No—gods, please, don't—”   

Almost immediately another man moves in to take his place. Jarlaxle grits his teeth. 

It seems to go on and on, there is no end to the men trying to surround him. As he expends another charge of displacement to escape the tight circle being formed about him, he makes a mental count—he is burning through his non-lethal magical resources very quickly. It will turn into a slaughter soon. 

He sees that the crowd has fled to the other end of the terrace, the judge with them, leaving Artemis and Corylus alone in the centre. To Jarlaxle’s dismay the mage is no longer insensate on the ground—he has shaken off the sleep poison and tottered to his feet beside the manor doors. Now he raises his shaky hand toward Artemis, muttering. By the length of the incantation Jarlaxle knows it is a more potent spell than the last.

He sees Artemis flinch, and Corylus’s sabre flashes forth. Artemis barely parries in time.

Guards are running along the terrace; more are coming from the manor. The man Jarlaxle enchanted has been wrestled to the floor by three of his fellows, kicking and shouting. It is a mad scene. 

Abruptly, Jarlaxle knows it is time for him to leave. The topaz ring on his right hand is his last charge of displacement magic; he could open a door to the end of the garden and disappear through the wall, traceless. Artemis might manage to kill Corylus and escape; and if not, if they kill him here, it will not last. Jarlaxle, however, is mortal, and he must be pragmatic. He had known that it might go like this—this isn’t a winnable fight, Artemis’ constraints are unreasonable and there are simply too many. An exit now would be quick and clean. No extraordinary measures, Artemis said. 

Yet he hesitates. He can almost hear Kimmuriel say, “Do you think the _rivvil_ would save you?”, a question for which he has no answer. And the drow breeding in him is, he knows, still strong—the mistrust of anything which reeks of sentimentality, of debts with no expectation of repayment. But he feels as though he is standing in a brief sliver of light with a great darkness behind it, and if he does this it will go out and there will be no recovering it. Artemis isn’t forgiving, he isn’t generous or lenient toward those who have injured him. He will see it as a betrayal, and it will remind him of all the other betrayals, even those Jarlaxle didn’t commit. Artemis will leave, having confirmed for himself that Jarlaxle is, every inch, what Artemis believed him to be. And they will return to how they were, before all this. Before—

The kiss—two!—in the ballroom has a kind of astonished shimmer in Jarlaxle’s mind, like having eaten something so sweet it will spoil him for other tastes. Even in recalling it, a lovely tremor runs over his shoulders and arms, and it feels as though there are fingers around his heart, squeezing. Perhaps it is all backwards, but he thinks about the aftermath—about remembering this evening bitterly in fifteen years or fifty years or a hundred, and imagining in wistful detail a different choice. He doesn’t want to remember Artemis the way he remembers Zak, the way he has remembered Zak for such a long time: with reluctance and sadness, and regret which has withstood his pretending that he felt nothing, that he wasn’t to blame, that for his own protection it was a right and necessary betrayal. Worse than the loss was the knowledge that he’d severed them from each other long before a matron mother took up a sacrificial knife.

As if sensing his indecision, Artemis spares him a glance—it is taking all his effort to fight off both the spell and Corylus—but from that look Jarlaxle understands that Artemis expects to be left behind. It isn’t permission, so much as a kind of grim, listless acceptance. Artemis, too, has always been pragmatic. He expects nothing less than betrayal—from the world, and from Jarlaxle in particular.

It is that expectation, as much as what Jarlaxle feels when he looks at Artemis, which resolves him.

In a wild leap he disengages from the guards crowding him and careens his way out of the circle which has been tightening about him like a noose, letting their blades glance off the stoneskin. With the topaz ring he opens a window in the air and steps through, emerging on the other side of the terrace. He wishes fervently for his hat.

At his sudden appearance the crowd shrinks back; the mage startles, and Jarlaxle has time to pull out his rope belt and throw it at him. It slithers and twists about the man, growing longer and thicker, until he is fully bound, smothered head to foot in rope coils like a mummy, and teeters over.

Jarlaxle laughs, and he sees Artemis reel out of the magic’s grip and glare at Corylus with the promise of some horrid end; and then the guards are upon him. A sword clatters down his back, another scrapes discordantly along his arm, but he ignores them, and brings his mace down on the mage’s head. Probably not lethal, he thinks.

He has to absorb another blow, and another, before he can turn and back away, and with both weapons he blocks and parries the blades coming at him, still giving ground—but he is outnumbered, and then he runs out of room.

He realises that his stoneskin enchantment has taken one blow too many when a sword punches through his side.

“Damn,” he says.

It is deep, he knows, even before the blade drags out of him, wet with blood. It doesn’t hurt as much as he expects—the pain is more of an aura, a sort of ghastly jaundiced glow upon the darkness—and he can keep fighting, he can pull a wand from his pouch and rattle off four short electrical shocks to jolt and stun his attackers; and another wand to engulf them in lurid green ooze.

He sees Artemis’ savage riposte, forcing Corylus back four, five, six paces in quick succession; then he must turn away to put down the guards advancing upon him. It all seems rather dreamlike, and his surroundings have begun to thump drearily with his pulse, which seems slow given all the exertion, and he feels slow, and tired, wanting to sit, wanting to rest his head for a moment. There is still no pain; he feels heavy, and it is difficult to raise his mace to deal a last blow. His shirt is wet, and his cape—the wrong sort of redness, a great stain of it—and he is angry that it has been ruined, but only at a distance. Then his legs give out, sitting him down hard upon the wall.

The commotion seems to drift from him—he is trying to stand but his muscles feel undone, liquid—and when he looks up, there is Artemis’ face, and he is being pushed down by a firm hand. It appears there are no more guards, at least.

“You should have—” But Artemis never finishes telling him what he should have done. There is urgency in how he is looking Jarlaxle over, and he doesn’t take his hand from Jarlaxle’s shoulder. Now he is feeling at Jarlaxle’s neck for his pulse with a bare hand. “How severe is it.”

“I think I may fall off this wall in a moment.” His own voice sounds rather slight and far away. “Which would be… undignified.”

Then a shape advances upon them—Corylus—but there is no need to alert Artemis, who lets him go and takes up the sabre again.

“Hold on,” Artemis says, and stalks away. The crowd hasn’t dispersed, despite the guards lying on the ground all about them; in fact they close ranks around the two swordsmen circling each other, so that Jarlaxle can see only flashes of the fight between the packed bodies, like a manic shadowplay on a wall.

Artemis’ sword darts through a parry, a riposte, a parry—the clanging of metal distorts in Jarlaxle’s ears—a downward slash, a slanting one, right and left, right and left. He is simply too fast for Corylus, the conclusion of this fight was always certain, despite Corylus’s efforts to divert it. Corylus works desperately to pace his opponent, face swollen and furious, but he is lagging.

Through the haze Jarlaxle sees it come, sees the build of momentum give force to Artemis’ next parry, and the next strike, and the scathing circle parry which drags the sword out of Corylus’s hand, and how the tension coils up in Artemis’ back leg before he lunges. He runs Corylus through.

Then there is quiet, in which Corylus sinks down to the paving stones clutching at his belly with Artemis’ sabre jutting out of it, and Jarlaxle tries to fetch the healing orb out of his pouch but it keeps slipping from his fingers which are bloody, and his breathing is rather laboured as though he has run a great distance, and he finds his head sinking, like those nights at his desk when the lines of script on the ledgers begin to blot and waver and the old dark wood seems almost as luring as his pillow.

“We have to go,” Artemis says, from an uncertain distance; and then his arm is yanked over Artemis’ shoulder, and the night swims as Artemis heaves him up and begins to walk him down the stair. The crowd retreats from them, whispering, disturbed; someone is weeping.

Then there is only the darkness, and the grass, and the sounds of Artemis’ breath as he hefts Jarlaxle along, taking nearly all of his weight because Jarlaxle cannot seem to bear himself up.

“Congratulations,” Jarlaxle says, and he knows he is slurring.

“Too messy,” Artemis replies. “Don’t pass out.”

“I shall—endeavour not to, but some—sometimes these things are—taken out of—out of our hands.”

“Stop talking, save your breath.”

“Have you—ever known me—to—to do that?”

“Not once,” says Artemis, with a shaky sort of laugh. “All the same.”

“For you, _abbil_ —” Then it is difficult to talk, so Jarlaxle doesn’t talk.

“Give me the hole.” It seems they have reached the wall. He fumbles in his pouch, drags it out—his arm is so heavy—and it is seized from him. He is pushed through the opening, the outside street a blur, and as he is about to collapse on the other side Artemis catches him, and eases him down to the pavement.

“Healing orb.”

“Yes, I—I have it…” He manages to grip it, and tug it out, but that small movement seems to tip him over a precipice; his vision spirals inward, his hearing muffles, all becomes terribly, deeply dark.

“Jarlaxle.” He knows the voice; he rises toward it. Artemis is bent over him. “We cannot stay here, there are—”

His wound is closed. He feels dreadful, and he is sopped in his own blood. But he can sit up, can stand with only a twinge in his side when Artemis pulls him to his feet—Artemis, who didn’t leave him behind. He finds that he is smiling.

Ahead of them, the High Road’s usual bustle of carriages and riders and travellers on foot has become a noisy chaos, as guests rush to leave the front gates of the Massalan manor, a crowd of nobles in riotous colours pouring onto the street:

“—Watch, they should be fetching the bloody _Guard_ —”

“—overjoyed that it happened at her ball, I wonder whether it wasn’t—“

“—one worth watching was in, gosh, I’d say ’52, although really you’d—”

“—bravely, but you know I heard his _early retirement_ was more like a—”

“—Davil! Davil!—Honestly, where—”

“—catch the name, I didn’t—”

Coaches swerve to avoid a woman who has dashed out into the middle of the crush, horses whinnying and almost rearing in upset. A driver is shouting invective at two drunk young men shambling between the traffic. Patrols of the City Watch in their green, white, and gold tabards are descending upon the estate. Some are using their studded wooden clubs to try to direct the carriages and riders into lanes, while still more fight their way through the gates toward the manor and others begin to spread out in a perimeter around it, or try to calm hysterical guests. Jarlaxle takes in the spectacle.

“You’ve caused quite a stir,” he says to Artemis, who has blood on his neck but appears otherwise unscathed. Behind them shouts ring out—they’ve been seen.

“Yes, now go!” Artemis shoves him forward and he begins to run across the street, and Artemis after him.

“I thought your lackey would be here,” says Artemis.

“So did I.” It is a long way back to the docks. “We’ll need to find somewhere to shed these disguises, and I’ll arrange our passage back to the ship.”

“Is that a good i—”

An open cart swerves at them—driven by the Watch, Jarlaxle realises, as it lurches to a halt and patrolmen of the Watch leap out of it. They scatter, Artemis off to the right, Jarlaxle toward the alley straight ahead, and just before he loses sight of Artemis he signs in drow hand cant, _South, toward the Market!_ He sees Artemis nod.

Then he plunges into the alley, wending this way and that to mislead his pursuers. He knows these backstreets, and yet they seem longer, almost endless and labyrinthine, and it is only adrenaline bearing him along, adrenaline and the gritted determination that they’ll not fail at this last stretch.

A shape rushes into his path, and it takes him a moment—a dagger already in his hand—to recognise Valas, a face he is glad to see.

“Captain, this way!”

“As always, your timing is excellent.” He follows Valas—a sharp right, then a left, then a long passage which curves around what seems to be a house full of revellers, voices and music lilting through the open windows.

And there is another face, Thasir, one of his younger soldiers, peering out of an alley behind the parked carriage in which they had been delivered to the ball. By the expressions of his men he knows he must look frightful. He lets Valas lead him down that way; and there is the rest of a patrol waiting at the other end, hopefully with the means to help them escape quickly and quietly.

“ _You_ —”

From out of the shadows to his left comes another shape. Another voice—raised, angry, also speaking undercommon. It is Soluun. “Get away from him!”

Ire rising, Jarlaxle goes for a wand. “What are you—”

Then there is a sound like thunder, like a deafening combustion of the air itself.

Jarlaxle skids to a stop. His hearing has broken, watery, and begins to whine. He sees the pistol in Soluun’s hand, a lick of ashen smoke rising from the barrel.

Behind him—twenty feet, the mouth of the alley, silhouetted against the street lamps—is Artemis, also stopped. The front of his doublet is dark, glistening, a stain spreading out across it. He makes a low, choked sound, his hand lifting to clutch his chest. There is nothing in his face but shock.

Amid the rising white roar of his brain, Jarlaxle has one clear thought: All this, for naught. Artemis will not forgive him. 

He turns on Soluun. He knows Artemis can’t be killed—at the level of logic and deliberation, he knows it, and yet the only word for what has frothed up hideously inside him is fear. “What have you—” But Soluun is already moving past him, the pistol still raised.

Another shot rings out; and misses, scattering dust and brick from the wall. Artemis has darted into the adjacent passageway, which is narrower and obsure; and is lost from view.

“Stop this, now!”

Jarlaxle is no longer bounded by any edict or scruple; he means to kill Soluun. As Soluun runs past he pulls dagger after dagger from his bracer and hurls them—one scrapes open Soluun’s cheek, another thuds into the space between Soluun’s shoulder blades. He sees the wince, the missed step; then Soluun too vanishes into the alley.

He begins to follow. As he does, a galling wave of exhausted dizziness blanks out his vision, and he sees the ground rise, and yet the expected collision doesn’t come.

Valas is beside him, bolstering him up by the arm. The blood loss has left him cold and queasy, feeling as though his limbs are still stone.

“Are you—”

“It’s no matter,” says Jarlaxle, forcing himself to straighten, even as black spots shiver and bloat before his eyes. As much as he is grateful, as much as he trusts Valas with his affairs, it is an old disinclination—he doesn’t show weakness in front of his men. “Call on Hereld, we’ll need quick transport back to my ship. And have one of the priests ready on board, depending on the gunshot wound he may need to perform surgery—”

He starts after Soluun, and he hears Valas call:

“Yes, captain. Be careful.”

Into the passageway, over a hump of cobblestones, his heart thudding dread. Then he halts.

Before him, Soluun has hauled Artemis up, and is forcing the pistol against his temple.

Jarlaxle stumbles over his next breath; he feels winded, sick. He has seen what these bullets do—to solid stone, to sheet lead, to flesh. It was the very reason he bought the prototypes from the Lantanese in the first place—sometimes, he remembers thinking, one must be uncompromising.

However powerful Charon’s Claw might be, however many times it has yanked Artemis back from death, such an injury to his brain would be catastrophic. It would ruin him: even if he lived, there would be nothing of him left.

Their eyes meet. Artemis has had the same thought; his expression is empty, resigned. Soluun’s arm is tight around him like a rope, clamping his arms to his sides, but he isn’t struggling. The bullet has missed his heart, or he wouldn’t be awake nor upright, but his doublet is wrinkled with blood, his hands are bloody—everywhere, it seems, there is blood.

Jarlaxle raises his hands, palms out. “Soluun. You should—”

Soluun’s face is like a mask of itself, almost twitching with fervency, his mouth a sort of smile. “I think, captain, you should keep your distance.” He looks behind Jarlaxle. “And the rest of you.”

It has been a while since one of his company has betrayed him like this. The fury is incandescent, Jarlaxle feels as though he is glowing with it. “Let go of him. Immediately.”

Soluun’s hand shakes. “I _knew_ he would try something tonight,” he says, “I knew he would try to—”

“He saved me!” Jarlaxle snarls.

“No, captain,” so gentle, and Jarlaxle can’t _abide_ being patronised, least of all in his mother tongue, “no, he led you into all that—and I saw it in his face, he meant for you to—”

Artemis chooses that moment to hook his foot about and kick the back of Soluun’s knee, buckling one leg, making Soluun cry out; and then they are struggling, Artemis trying to break the grip while Soluun tries to wrestle him still, the pistol still aimed at Artemis’ head.

The pistol fires. Jarlaxle feels his heart _move_ in his chest—a stricken, endless moment—but Artemis’ head was too low, the bullet must have missed him by inches. Jarlaxle lets out his breath in a shudder.

Soluun has regained his grip on his captive. They seem dazed from the sound of the gunshot, and Artemis’ blood is smeared all over them both, but Artemis has that wild, uncowed look which says he might be about to do something reckless. 

“Artemis,” Jarlaxle lowers his voice, as though it is only the two of them here, “please, stay still.”

There is a round blackish smear on Artemis’ face where the pistol was pressed to it. Soluun seems to relish digging in the end of the barrel, forcing Artemis’ neck into an uncomfortable slant. The revulsion in his face as he looks at Artemis is extraordinary.

“They talk about this one,” Soluun says, “the men in Menzoberranzan—and in Luskan. The human arrogant enough to believe he could be one of us. They told me—they told me how many of us he has killed. How he put us in danger—put _you_ in danger—from the Netherese, and—”

Artemis lets out a short, horrid laugh, which Jarlaxle wishes he could unhear; but to his relief, Artemis doesn’t move. He can’t look at Artemis directly, can’t let himself show anything so vulnerable as worry, not when Soluun is looking for it.

“Some of them think you were enchanted,” Soluun goes on. “And that is why you left us for so long.”

“And how would he have managed that? You have some notion, I’m sure, of how well I am protected.”

“Humans have their ways, you know. It is the only way they achieve anything—by treachery, by power they steal from those more worthy. They are _vermin_.”

“No,” Jarlaxle says, “they are not.”

A thin, tired sadness is stealing into him. It will always be thus, among the men of his company; the hatred is too intimately a part of them, they cannot live on the surface while they despise all those who inhabit it. There is no possibility of making them free, when they love their shackles too well. Perhaps he has tried to give them too much. Perhaps they were better off in the dark.

“Why do you waste your time with them?” Soluun says. “Why do you forget us?”

“Is it so strange, that I should want to see the world?”

“With _this_?” Soluun shakes his captive, who is greyish, bland eyed, shaking; Artemis is going into shock.

“Yes!”

Soluun shakes his head. “He did something to you. It cannot be—not again, I will not let him do that to you again.”

“He has done nothing to me,” Jarlaxle retorts, “I make my own decisions.”

“No, sir—he has made them for you, and we—and I have to help you, I have to—”

“You have become swept up in your own deranged fantasies. You swore an oath of loyalty to me, which you have _violated_ —”

“No, captain.” He wants to pummel that nervy, pitying look off Soluun’s face. “I’m keeping my oath. You will understand—give it a little time, you will know that I did this to protect you, keep you from this, this twisted creature, this—”

“Let go of him,” says Jarlaxle. “Now.”

“I can’t, captain. You should know that.”

“If you harm him—” He can barely speak, he is so angry. “If you harm him, I will _ruin_ you until there is nothing left of you. The punishments the priestesses deal out will seem a _mercy_ by comparison.”

Soluun looks stricken, but he nods. “I know. But I’ll do it, captain—I’ll do it for you, even if you must kill me for it.”

Then Artemis gives a helpless twitch, and an odd sort of moan, and he starts to slump, becoming dead weight. Soluun has to bend sharply to keep any hold upon him. As he does, Artemis’ elbow stabs into his groin, doubling him over, and up at his face, smashing his nose.

Soluun howls, his grip slipping. Artemis wrenches free and lurches forward a few paces, one hand reaching toward the back of his belt; and he turns about, his mouth very tight, and hurls his dagger. Jarlaxle sees the flash in the air.

The blade _thunks_ into Soluun’s throat, where it sticks like an arrow. Soluun gives a horrified sort of gasp, and a thin line of blood slips down to wet his collar. Trembling, he tries to aim the pistol at Artemis again, but Jarlaxle moves at the same time—reflex, entirely—and puts himself between them.

There is an amusing moment when Soluun tries to slip around him, first to the left, then to the right, and each time Jarlaxle blocks it, bullies him back. Then he walks forward.

“Captain, please—”

“Stand down,” says Jarlaxle, advancing steadily.

“I have to—I have to—” The gun dips, as though it might simply fall out of Soluun’s hand, but he is still trying to get a clear shot at Artemis, which Jarlaxle won’t allow.

“You’ve done quite enough. You won’t do anything more.”

“You can’t see,” the voice is so wrenching, so sincere, “you can’t see what it is, what a danger—”

“I know perfectly well how dangerous he is. I don’t need you, or anyone else, to tell me that.”

“No, you, you—”

Jarlaxle is close now, the barrel of Soluun’s pistol pushes limply against his chest. “Are you going to kill me, Soluun?”

“No, sir, I—”

“Then put it down.”

The pistol wavers, and sinks. Jarlaxle puts his hand over Soluun’s, which is hot and shaking, and gently pries his fingers off the grip. “Stand down,” he says again, never blinking, feeling quite calm, and tugs it from Soluun’s hand.

Soluun smiles. He looks young, and almost beatific, gazing at Jarlaxle with something that is almost adoration. “Forgive me, captain. I only—”

Jarlaxle flips the pistol about, and shoots him between the eyes. One—Soluun topples over, he aims again—two, three, four, five. He hears the click of the empty chamber, but finds himself squeezing the trigger once more as if he might defy it by sheer rage. His wrist aches with the kickback. Then he tosses the pistol down beside the crumpled shape of his former lieutenant. He can smell the smokepowder, a black and burning smell.

He has known plenty of betrayals—has been the architect of many more—but betrayal by one of his own is different. They aren’t merely mercenaries; he isn’t simply their employer. He knows where they came from, how they were raised, how their lives ran aground; and he rescued every one—from exile, slavery, monstrosity, execution, or a slow death by crushing of the spirit. It isn’t a payment of a debt he is extracting; they are loyal to him out of choice. And so—and so, when they betray him, he deals with them himself.

Behind him Artemis is leaned upon the wall, gasping. Now he stumbles forward, no doubt to take back the dagger—perhaps there are some dregs of life he might draw from Soluun—but all at once the strength goes out of him, and Jarlaxle rushes to catch him as he drops, grunting at the sudden weight.

“Artemis—”

Jarlaxle staggers down to one knee and then to a kneel on the cold, slushed ground, Artemis’ head heavy in the crook of his arm, the rest of Artemis’ body laid out flat. He presses his hand over Artemis' hand where it is clamped to the wound, and blood wells up like warm water between their fingers. Artemis’ eyes are vague, but wry.

“As always,” Artemis says, and there is something wrong with his breathing, Jarlaxle fears the bullet has nicked a lung, “your men are a delight.”

“Three times this has happened now. What is it about you that so inspires them to insubordination?”

“It’s nothing—” A wince. “Nothing _I’m_ doing.”

No, Jarlaxle thinks, it’s simply what you _are_ that offends them so—we would not have such trouble if you were merely mediocre.

“Where’s the orb?”

“Here.” Artemis fumbles blind with the pocket of his beautiful coat, which is soaked stiff with blood, and brings out the orb. “Not much left.”

Jarlaxle takes it from him and begins to chant the incantation hurriedly, feeling the warmth gather within the glass and move into Artemis’ chest as he directs it—then suddenly peter out. He tries to summon a little more from it, anything, but there is none.

When he looks down Artemis’ eyelids have slipped, only a dull slit of each eye is visible. “Artemis.” Alarmed, he gives Artemis a little shake, provoking a breathy spasm of pain.

“Don’t… do that.”

“Keep looking at me,” he says. “Open your eyes. You’re not going to die.”

A faint smile. “It doesn’t—matter. Just… let it—” Artemis has to stop to gasp for breath. “You know the sword will…” Another gasp. “Every time is… is the same.”

“No,” says Jarlaxle, his throat aching with some unfathomable feeling. “No. It is is different this time.”

“Why.”

“Because _I_ am here.”

He is very drained, he wants to let his head sink down upon Artemis’ chest; and yet the alarm and stress are still pushing his blood powerfully through him, his heart might be shaking inside his ribs. He realises that he is thoroughly sick of Artemis being made to suffer, not least when he is the cause of it.

“The evening,” Artemis says, his voice dwindled to barely a whisper, “was it as— _diverting_ as you’d hoped.”

“Oh, yes. Better, in fact.” He can’t help but smile, even as his hand skims against Artemis’ neck and finds it cold. “And you?”

A pause; a reedy suffering breath. Then: “Passable.”

“Even the dancing?”

Artemis doesn’t answer; he is sputtering up a mouthful of blood. His eyes close.

“Artemis—”

From behind, footsteps rush toward them.

“Captain, we must go—” Valas, a hand on his shoulder.

“Yes,” he says, without thinking, and then he stirs himself. “Where is the priest?”

“Aboard the ship. Ready for our arrival.”

“Good. Thank you, Valas.”

He sees Hereld approaching, but it is an unreal figure, a thing from another plane. Around them it is still snowing: the light gauzy sleet when they emerged from the Massalan manor has become thick and wild in the air, turning and turning beautifully like a waltz.

 _Now_ it is time to leave—the act is done, the villain is dead, and come the morning there will be plots and machinations aplenty, in this city where the play is never ended, only changed.

But just then he cannot think of them. He cannot think of Soluun’s body in the dirt, or Corylus, or the uproar they have left behind them; he cannot think of anything, but that Artemis is breathing so slightly now, so slowly, and looks so very tired.

The snow is cold upon his bare head; it makes him shiver. He can still smell the smokepowder in the air. He leans close, and gently dabs the blood from Artemis’ lips with his thumb, and murmurs: “I am here.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soluun's gun isn't technically a pistol, it's a revolver; but _Dragon Heist_ is generally vague about the capabilities of Lantanese firearms, and the historical use of "pistol" has always been broad, so I let myself have the inaccuracy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is... later than planned; January was a work and mental health conflagration. Anyway, all good now—I had a blast with this, and accidentally it became fic-length in its own right. 
> 
> A bunch of people were helpful and great, but special thanks go to Rin, who tolerated gobbets of fic in a fandom she knows nothing about being tossed into chat, and much wailing & rending of garments. Thanks also to Mav, for the much appreciated advice. 
> 
> Because I am cursed, this isn’t the last chapter—it grew an epilogue. ~~The epilogue is silly and sappy, so I'll post it on the 14th.~~
> 
>  **CW:** now “Explicit”, maybe aspirational rather than actual. This chapter (+ fic, really) is an attempt to tackle what happens at the end of the _Sellswords Trilogy_ , which I have mixed feelings about; as such, there are non-explicit references to sexual abuse, and depictions of PTSD.

 

“Captain. Captain, you should sit down.”

“Hm?”

Jarlaxle stops pacing. Valas has come into the doorway of his sitting room, and appears disapproving.

“I sent Maghen to treat you,” Valas says.

“Yes, and I directed him to the man who took a bullet to the chest.”

“Will you sit, at least? You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“I will stand,” says Jarlaxle, though he knows it isn’t prudent. “Give me your report.”

Valas shuts the door and tucks his hands together behind his back. “You might have told me what you intended before you did it. The whole North Ward is in disarray.” After all these years, Jarlaxle expects his well-worn candour.

“With nothing to tie us to it, I might point out.”

“The priests of the City Watch are very… resourceful. We’ve been burned before.”

“I’m aware. And?”

Valas bites a little at his lower lip. “I don’t mean to sound like our deceased compatriot, disturbed as he was, but—at the moment, _he_ ,” with a tilt of his head toward Jarlaxle’s bedchamber, “is a liability.”

“It’s all right, my friend. I do welcome your honest counsel.”

“Captain—” Valas only addresses him as such when being unusually solemn or emphatic. “I know that you…” Another glance toward the bedchamber.

“Go on,” says Jarlaxle quietly, meeting his shrewd, discomfited gaze. It isn’t quite the look another Hune used to give him when daring to tread upon the perilous subject of Zaknafein Do’Urden. It is kinder, and therefore much worse.

Valas sighs, and Jarlaxle sees the retreat. Not now, then. “I am… sorry for Soluun’s conduct.”

“He was a lieutenant,” says Jarlaxle. “And therefore my responsibility, not yours. Besides, we knew about his predilections, and we did nothing.”

“ _Predilections_ are one thing,” says Valas. “Being driven to— _that_ , by your association with a human, is another thing entirely.”

“Association.” Jarlaxle wants to laugh—or some other, nastier urge has climbed up his throat. “Is that what you call it amongst yourselves?”

“I could call it an ‘affair’, if you’d prefer.”

Now Jarlaxle does laugh, bitterly. Most of his rage at Soluun, he knows, is nothing to do with insubordination. It is a reaction to having his feelings for Artemis dragged out and displayed, as though they are a blot on his name or a debt for which he should be brought to account. He is still raw from it, sickened by the knowledge that it can’t be undone; what was said can’t be unheard.

“Whatever it is,” says Valas, “next time, would you avoid standing _in front_ of the loaded pistol? Had Soluun decided to—”

“He wasn’t going to kill me.”

“I think there was little he wouldn’t have done. One false move, and… well, you know.”

Jarlaxle looks at his desk, where Soluun’s pistol lies on a stack of papers, empty, little more than a peculiar paperweight. He is tired, that is why he cannot stop seeing Artemis’ face with the consciousness sliding out of it, grey as ashes, blood on his teeth and tongue.

“I do.” His own vision blurs, black speckled, for a moment, and it is difficult not to sway. “Anything else?”

Valas nods. “We removed his body. It was burned, discreetly.”

“Good.”

“I’ll write up the post mortem. I don’t know that it was preventable, it seems he was going to snap sooner or later, but maybe we should have—”

“No,” says Jarlaxle. “Save it, I think we’ve divined all we can from this episode.” He doesn’t care to read four leaves of parchment on Soluun’s fixation with Artemis.

“It’s routine to—”

A knock at the door. “Come,” he calls.

Maghen enters and bows, the silver symbols on his robes glinting.

“How is he?” Jarlaxle asks tensely.

“Sir. He is well.”

“He will recover?”

“He is already recovered.”

“Good.” He hadn’t realised what tension he was carrying in his shoulders and the whole plane of his back until he sighs out his breath and relaxes.

“The bullet ruptured his lung,” Maghen goes on, “so there may be some residual soreness—but no lasting harm.”

Not true, Jarlaxle thinks; Artemis will hate me for this. “Is he awake?”

“No, sir—sleeping.” He catches the faint disdain in the word _v’dri_. “May I treat you now?”

“Yes, yes.” He unpins his beautiful cape and hangs it, though it is bloody. To Valas he says, ”If there’s any news from inside the Watch, will you bring it straight away?”

“I will.”

As Valas leaves, Jarlaxle sits in the nearby armchair. He feels quite weak, but he will not show it. Stubborn old fool, says Zak, in his mind; he must be tired if he is hearing that.

It is quick work: the wound was already closed. When all sign of it is gone Maghen rises.

“I can’t replace lost blood, sir, so you’ll feel some aftereffects—fatigue, dizziness… I’d suggest rest.”

“Noted,” he says. “Thank you, Maghen.”

Maghen bows, and packs together his case. The door shuts after him.

Jarlaxle makes himself stand, his mind lethargic but fidgety. He should write to Kimmuriel, to get ahead of the rumour mill which travels so swiftly even between cities hundreds of miles apart; he should debrief the other men on Soluun’s death; he should arrange for word of Erystian’s flight from Waterdeep to be leaked to the broadsheets and through the nobility’s circles of gossip; he should send Valas to make contact with their informant in Mirt’s house and in readiness for the latest from the Council…

Instead he goes to the door to his bedchamber and peers in.

In the dark, Artemis is a still grey body amid the bedclothes of Jarlaxle’s four poster bed, under the silk canopy. The sound of his breath is soothing—how silly, Jarlaxle thinks; but all the same.

As he trails nearer the bed he recalls, in scattered fashion, the many nights during their travels together. While Artemis slept, he would work, or read, or venture out in search of amusement, until tiredness or boredom drew him back and he would slip into their bedroom, the dark full of Artemis’ breathing. All this is familiar: the stern presence; the quiet, cloudy preoccupation in Artemis’ face; the strange helplessness of human sleep.

Things changed, toward the end. In Memnon, Artemis slept very little; and instead there were arguments, or long absences, or a silence that felt more like a rupture than a peace.

It aches to recall it all now. Behind his breastbone, as if an insistent fingertip is pulling at his sinew, slowly. A difficult ache—measures of fondness, regret.

And yet the end, when it came, was sudden. For a long while afterward he believed he had helped Artemis, even at the cost of their friendship. _Fare well,_ he hears Artemis say, _or fare ill—I care not_. He held to it, the belief that Artemis would thank him, even as the memories grew sour and saddening. Eventually he began to wonder whether he had smashed apart their friendship because it was no longer just a passing pleasure; because he had begun to feel a kind of contentment, which he had found intolerable.

He passes the chair which bears Artemis’ bloody coat and doublet. Artemis’ bare shoulders are visible above the bedclothes, and the clean cloth bandages wrapped about his chest. Jarlaxle lets his fingers drift over the sticky silk, the coils of the embroidery. Then he seats himself on the edge of the bed.

Artemis looks better, but still deathly. He hasn’t lost the greyish sallowness of his skin, which appears a duller brown; nor the hollowed quality of his eyes. There is a line between his brows, not quite a frown, and his dark eyelashes twitch upon his cheek, shadowlike.

It is a complicated face; or perhaps that is only Jarlaxle’s perception.

You saved me, he thinks. It seems a foolish, sentimental thought, the sort of thing he would mock Zak for. _Dos ph’inbauin sel’tur_ —‘soft’, like in the Common sense. Artemis helped him escape out of pragmatism, leaving him to die would only incite the company’s vengeance.

But he remembers, piecemeal, Artemis’ arm tightening around him, and Artemis’ body pressed to his side as his feet stumbled over the hard frozen ground. The strain of worry in Artemis’ voice. He hopes it is enough to keep Artemis from turning on him—and then he wonders when he began leaving everything to fortune.

Outside, snow still falls thick and dreamy as goosedown in the blackness. He thinks about Artemis vanishing into it, gone beyond his reach, and his mood tips, darkens.

What words are enough for this, he thinks. _Ssinjin haska_ , Zak used to call him, lying sleepily in Jarlaxle’s bedsheets. Dropping vowels here and there as commoners are wont to do, voice gone soft, fingertips drawing meaningless sigils on Jarlaxle’s back, _s’njin hask_. Honey-tongue. So many words under his power, but none that could draw Zak back to him after he had severed them, even if his pride had allowed him to try; and none that could make Artemis forget who he is, what he is, what he has done.

All he might hope to do now is lessen the damage—so that when Artemis leaves it isn’t only bitter, and in the years and decades after this Jarlaxle might think of him without too much regret. Might remember him instead in the dining room of the _Eyecatcher_ , drinking dessert wine and describing how he killed a man with a feather quill; remember his pensive, bluish shadow flitting through the Massalan gardens; how his eyes looked when Jarlaxle touched his hair in the carriage; what it was like to kiss him, a thrill and also a kind of wild and surprising relief.

He swallows, and sighs through his nose, and smiles at himself, at his foolishness. _Have you learned nothing_ , he hears Zak say. One of their many quarrels before the end, the kind that used to send Jarlaxle careening off into some reckless venture, someone else’s bed, sick with how much he _cared_.

No, he thinks—no, nothing. For it seems we are both of us incurably sentimental.

When he looks up, Artemis is awake.

He almost flinches. He intended to sit only for a short while, not for Artemis to find him there at his bedside like a doting nursemaid. His only stroke of fortune is that Artemis, in his confusion, seems not to realise how odd it is.

“Where—” Groggy, Artemis’ gaze flickers between his face and the door.

Jarlaxle gathers himself and puts on his smile, though he has a particular, uneasy feeling in his belly. “Hello, my friend. When I imagined getting you into my bed, I must confess this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

Slowly, Artemis sits up. His dagger is in his hand, but he hasn’t raised it; he seems surprised to have found it.  
  
“I recall you used to keep it under your pillow,” says Jarlaxle, and he knows he is sitting too close, but stubbornly he doesn’t retreat. “I took the liberty—”

“Fine,” says Artemis, hoarse. At last he sets the blade on the table at the beside.

“How do you feel?”

“Spectacular.”

“It was fortunately a clean wound, else my people would have been digging the shrapnel out of you for some time.”

Artemis winces as he arches his shoulder a little. “Are you certain they weren’t.”

The bandages aren’t needed any longer but Artemis doesn’t move to unwind them. They are both very aware that he is half undressed—echoes of their argument in Drury’s shop.

“Well, I wouldn’t expect you to _feel_ fortunate,” Jarlaxle says. He tries to keep his face in its familiar aspect—irreverent, merely fond—but he fears he is betraying himself even by looking. The feeling of exposure is much worse under Artemis’ eyes.

“How long has it been, since…”

“It’s two o’clock,” says Jarlaxle, glancing at the clock on the dresser. “Or thereabouts. You were out… ah, just over an hour.”

Artemis dips his chin in a slow nod, and his lips part as though he might speak, but he doesn’t. Jarlaxle, too, feels an odd clotting in his throat, bereft. He can’t discern at all if Artemis is angry.

Finally, Artemis grunts, “I’m getting up.”

The tension doesn’t break but it recedes. Jarlaxle rises from the bed. “I shall be next door, in my study. Come through when you’re ready.”

As he leaves he hears the bedclothes slop aside and Artemis sliding out of bed. Another wince of breath—he doesn’t let himself look. He pulls the door behind him without letting it close.

 

* * *

 

As he is shuffling the pages of a report on the new archmage’s political appointments at Sorcere, the glass sphere on his desk turns red and gives a soft chime.

Jarlaxle thinks to refuse; but he shouldn’t delay this conversation. He touches the sphere.

The image of Kimmuriel that appears beside his desk is faint, ghostly; he can see only Kimmuriel’s hair and teeth, and the whites of his eyes. It is an effort for Kimmuriel to project himself such a distance.

“Go on,” Jarlaxle murmurs, so his voice will not carry. “But quickly.”

_I warned you._

He smiles. “What hour is it there, my friend? Too late to be so dramatic, I think.”

_Without exception, that one has caused only turmoil and expensive failure._

“On the contrary, I think he has been rather restrained when met with hostility that was wholly uncalled for.”

_We should have killed him years ago._

The anger that winds up in him feels good, even when he is weary. More than that, a kind of spite—how obvious you are, he thinks.

Kimmuriel _hates_ Artemis. Twice he has betrayed Jarlaxle, and both times he sought to use the opportunity to deal with Artemis in a permanent way. And yet on the subject he has always pretended to be objective, unruled by feeling, where Jarlaxle is partial and irrational—weak.

“Ah,” Jarlaxle says. “Well, you did try.”

It is as good as a warning. Even Kimmuriel is chastened by reminders of his own treachery.

_I thought you would be loath to disrupt the peace and draw attention to our presence, when it is far from secure._

Jarlaxle can see through that as well. Their present arrangement suits Kimmuriel, because it is predictable, because Jarlaxle does his duties—sits at his desk day after day signing ledgers and operational reports and requisition orders, with the occasional trip to warm up a trade deal or a matron mother or a high ranking informant—and spends the rest of his time dallying with the nobility, or tinkering with Lantanese technology, or planning another parade.

The most turbulent era of Kimmuriel’s time in Bregan D’aerthe was when Jarlaxle set out to travel with Artemis, leaving Kimmuriel at the helm in the aftermath of his own attempted coup. It was, Jarlaxle reflects, the best possible punishment, but it has made Kimmuriel dread any suggestion that Jarlaxle is about to abscond from the captaincy again. At times he suspects Kimmuriel is having him watched, reading his private messages, for any sign of an impending departure.

“Perhaps it has been peaceful too long,” he says. “Complacent, even.”

 _You helped him kill a Masked Lord. That will have_ consequences.

Curiously, he has almost forgotten the political turmoil that will follow the assassination; but Waterdeep will be a different place come morning. In recent days he considered a handful of possible candidates to fill Corylus’s vacant seat. There is no doubt that he will be able to manoeuvre the Council toward the one he decides to favour.

“To our benefit,” he says. “I believe I know how we might steer—”

He is cut off. _You did not do it for our benefit._ Kimmuriel can deploy the word ‘our’ with chilling effect. Jarlaxle bristles at it.

“My reasons are my own. You need only concern yourself with the ends.”

 _They were_ his _ends. Our position is imperilled as a result. And one of our men is dead._

“Because he disobeyed me—disobeyed several direct orders.”

_He was attempting to remove someone who presents a threat to you, and all of us._

“In his faulty estimation, and yours. I don’t require protection.”

_You would have bled to death—_

“But I didn’t,” says Jarlaxle. “Because of _that human_. Meanwhile I am, I think, still responsible for discipline in this company, and I will _not_ tolerate conduct of that kind from a subordinate.”

Y _ou killed him because he threatened Entreri._ Kimmuriel pauses, and Jarlaxle can feel his indecision, before he ventures where Valas wouldn’t. _Do you not see, where he is concerned you are—_

“ _Enough_ ,” Jarlaxle snarls.

As they were hefting him onto a stretcher for the journey back to the ship, Artemis stopped breathing. The last sound he made before the spell flashed them away was a tiny rasp, like the scrape of a sword; and that was all.

Jarlaxle remembers that sound, and how Artemis looked on the brink of death, because of his own company and what has always flourished within it. Because he has allowed it to do so, thinking it petty and harmless.

“I have always been glad of your counsel,” he says. Through the window the snow cavorts in front of his eyes, and he can almost think of Kimmuriel as merely some dark, hateful, anonymous voice of his homeland, and not his trusted second in command. “But on this matter, I will hear nothing from you. Is that quite clear?”

_On this, of all things, you should listen—_

“We will speak tomorrow. Dismissed.”

Kimmuriel sighs, and the image dissolves like steam.

Jarlaxle turns from the window. He is tense, with no way to displace it, and now he is staring at the pistol on his desk. It would have been instant, like Zak. How easily they are snuffed out.

“Did he tell you that you should have left me to die.”

Artemis stands in the doorway, arms folded, shoulder leaned against the jamb. He looks worn and unsettled. It is unfathomable that Jarlaxle didn’t hear anyone enter—he is too distracted, he is making _mistakes_.

“More or less—you know Kimmuriel,” he says, with a smile he feels none of.

Artemis has put on the grey silk shirt he bought from Drury. The cut is simpler than the doublet he was wearing last night; it suits him well. The dark fitted breeches are bloodstained down his left hip and in an almost artful spatter across the knee.

They make a fine pair, Jarlaxle thinks. His own doublet is stiff with his blood and Artemis’, and he is muddy and unkempt besides. His hat and eyepatch lie on his desk. For perhaps the first time in his recollection he looks more out of order than his partner.

Artemis comes toward the desk. He has left off his swordbelt, but his dagger is certainly hidden somewhere on his person. “I told you—”

Jarlaxle quirks his head. _Extraordinary measures._ “Yes, I do recall.”

“Wasteful,” Artemis says.

As though he should have let Artemis die and come back to life in a cold squalid alley. “I don’t consider it a waste.”

“You could have let—”

“But I didn’t.”

The room feels delicate, prickly, as if carpeted with shards of glass. Jarlaxle is used to navigating awkwardness, even hostility; but not when he is fighting the unfamiliar impulse to hide himself.

“Well,” he says, falling back upon social graces, “it is good to see you up and about, my friend.”

Artemis, however, doesn’t observe niceties even in his better moods, and this isn’t one of those. “Your people would prefer I weren’t. Are they going to let me leave?”

“Of course. Their preferences aren’t important.”

“Unless they have one of these, apparently.” Artemis picks up Soluun’s pistol, weighing it in his hand.

“Not even then.”

“What happened to him.” Artemis’ memory must be out of sorts; but he didn’t overhear that part of the conversation, at least. “You killed him.” More a question than a statement.

“I very much doubt he’d have survived your dagger in his throat,” Jarlaxle says, “but yes.”

Artemis sets down the gun. “Why.”

“His actions were unacceptable.”

“Your men have tried to kill me before.”

Because they hated you and believed I would care not at all, Jarlaxle thinks, not because they feared I cared too much.

“True,” he says. “But this is the first time one of them has almost managed to do it.”

“You must be proud.”

“Hardly. You’ve no experience fighting gunslingers, and it was little more than chancy opportunism.”

“What a disservice,” says Artemis, sarcasm dragging on his vowels. “He was trying to protect you.”

So _that_ part of the conversation was overheard. Jarlaxle clenches his hands into fists behind his back, and keeps his face perfectly mild. “Be that as it may—he was addled and obsessed, and it made him dangerous.”

“He didn’t attack _you_.”

He might as well have, Jarlaxle thinks; then he stifles the thought, angered by it. “No, he didn’t.”

“You let Kimmuriel live, after much worse.”

“Kimmuriel wasn’t _addled_. He went against my wishes because he deemed it the best course for the company.” They both know that isn’t all Kimmuriel did. “I regret that, both times, you suffered for it.”

“It isn’t pleasant, being brought back to life,” says Artemis, his voice so calm a chill goes through Jarlaxle’s nape. “I assumed being brought back with half the contents of my skull missing would be less pleasant still.”

“Yes,” Jarlaxle says quietly. “That seemed certain. Is that the only reason you fought him?”

“If someone was going to put an end to me, I wouldn’t have it be one of your lackeys.”

“I see.”

“Why do you ask.”

“I told you that I wanted you to enjoy being alive. I didn’t say that idly.”

Artemis’ expression darkens, as quick as a player changing masks. “And you hoped—what—that you had _fixed_ me? Was all this to—”

“To what?” Jarlaxle retorts. He is tired, tired of defending his actions from quarters which shouldn’t be hostile. “My intention was, earnestly, to help you kill Corylus Thann without getting yourself arrested and tried for high crimes against the state—which I have done, thus far. I knew I could assist you, so I did.”

“You always have ulterior motives, there is always—”

“Yes! I hoped you would _enjoy_ yourself, is there something sinister in that?”

“Probably.”

Jarlaxle shakes his head, and leans against the desk. His gaze falls upon the pistol, the pile of informants’ reports, the stack of clairvoyance charms disguised as Waterdhavian copper bits. “Not this time, my friend.”

“You’re not that selfless.”

“No, I’m not. I didn’t claim I got nothing out of it—I did.”

“And what was that.”

“The pleasure of your company, mostly.” He can’t make it sound entirely casual. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

With a finger he gives the coin stack a careless little flick and looks up, uncertain of what he will find. Artemis’ mouth is a pained line.

Jarlaxle hates this—the feeling that he is fumbling, being clumsy and flatfooted and _obvious_. It has been many, many years since he last felt this uncertain; and longer still since anything mattered so very much.

“Do you believe me?” he says.

“Should I?”

“I would hope that after tonight you might… set some store by it.”

The sting of the exposure keeps returning. He wants to peel the knowledge of his weakness out of Artemis’ head. But now Artemis’ weakness is a little less opaque to him, as well.

They look at each other.

“Why me,” says Artemis, flatly.

“What?”

“You could have anyone.” From someone else it would be flattery; from Artemis it sounds like an accusation.

“Probably,” Jarlaxle says. “You could do well for yourself too—really, it’s only the death threats that are off-putting, I can—”

“ _Jarlaxle_.”

“You keep bringing others into it—what should they matter? We are speaking about you and me.”

“Why did you—” Artemis breathes out. “During the duel, when I—why didn’t you leave.”

“You know why, I hope.”

“Enlighten me.”

Their mutual discomfort makes the air feel muggy. In Jarlaxle’s throat there is an airy remark to sidestep the question— _why, I wasn’t about to miss the climax!_ —because it is too sharp a question, too direct, and he has already given too much away. He could dissemble— _it wasn’t as dire as all that._ He could tell a lie— _I didn’t want to leave_ —or another— _I wouldn’t betray you again_ —or another— _I knew I could save you._

The silence drags. If he were playing the part properly he should smile and laugh it off and make some flippant remark; but he touches his tongue to the roof of his mouth, considering, and he says, quietly:

“I didn’t want you to remember me unkindly.”

Unspoken: as you did before.

Artemis’ eyes narrow, almost a wince; but then they _soften_ , so unexpectedly it is like a familiar landscape made strange by the turning of the seasons. Like the city after the thaw. In that moment, Jarlaxle thinks, they have surprised each other.

He turns toward Artemis, and as he does a sharp phantom pain goes through his stomach where the blade went in. Some flicker of it must show on his face, because Artemis’ gaze goes to his side, and the blood he is still wearing.

It is only a little manipulative, Jarlaxle thinks. Never mind that he has dozens of clean shirts in a nearby room and the means to expunge blood from silk in an instant. And if he has left off his eyepatch and his hat because he knows he appears to Artemis more honest and vulnerable without them—well, perhaps it is to his own advantage; or perhaps a mask is a truer face. He is no longer certain what part he means to play.

“Are you well,” Artemis says. There is a rare dull sort of hurt in his expression, though perhaps he doesn’t know it; and Jarlaxle realises, slowly, that it is care; worry. If anyone else looked at him like that he would mock them—as he once mocked Zak—and send them away; but it is Artemis, who cares about no one, and guards himself like a fortress.

And besides, Jarlaxle thinks, it would be rather hypocritical.

“Yes,” he says. “All mended.” He slides up the sticky hem of the doublet to show Artemis his bare, unwounded side. “You see?”

As he does, the memory of the stabbing flinches to the fore of his mind. He pushes it back, and turns himself outward. He sees that Artemis wants to touch him, and the awareness heats the inside of his skin. It is startling, where someone else’s desire for him would seem inevitable.

“And you?” he asks.

“Well enough,” says Artemis.

“Having seen you both ways, I must say I prefer you without the bullet holes.”

“So do I,” Artemis says, and shifts his weight, which brings them closer.

“Quite the night, hm?”

“It was… memorable.” Artemis settles on the word with a knowing glint in his eyes.

“Good,” says Jarlaxle, and he means it. Perhaps if Artemis remembers him fondly, some day— “Good. I hope you’ll remember it when the Calishite aristocrats are clamouring at your door for you to settle their petty squabbles.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“And as for all the rest…” The arguments, the tension, Artemis’ resentment; the strange whirlwind of their time together.

“Absurd,” Artemis says.

Jarlaxle smiles wider. “Unorthodox, perhaps.”

“You flatter yourself.”

“I wasn’t only speaking about me.”

He is leaning against his desk, which gives Artemis an inch or two of height over him. They are close, close enough that he can see Artemis’ eyes aren’t one shade but a gradation: there are veins of brown near his pupil, and a very fine band of white, and they darken outward from a soft sage grey to a dark slate like the brow of a thundercloud.

“You are very presumptuous,” Artemis says, his voice sunk down to its lowest tones.

“Yes.”

“And impudent.”

“Certainly.”

“And shameless.”

“Oh, yes. Always and incurably, I hope.”

“Hells.” Artemis shakes his head. “You’ll be the death of me.”

The smile Jarlaxle wears feels strange and tender. It hurts, and he finds he does not mind it.

“No, my friend,” he says. “Not if I can help it.”

“You can’t,” Artemis replies. Then he seals his mouth over Jarlaxle’s.

A stunning want flares through Jarlaxle like a detonation of smokepowder. Want, and more than wanting. It is all he can do to reach for Artemis—who is holding his face in both hands like an artefact, whose tongue is hot as blood in his mouth, who is improbable and alive and _here_. He grabs at Artemis’ shoulders, and lets Artemis press him against his desk, crushing and scattering parchment.

Between one kiss and the next, Artemis manages, “I have to leave.”

“I know.” He goads a little at Artemis’ lower lip with his teeth. “I know. But not yet.”

Then he hauls Artemis closer by the hip. Artemis is already halfway hard—the breeches hide little—and breathing like the air is very thin. As his forehead touches Artemis’ temple and he drags his thumb through the stubble on Artemis’ jaw, Jarlaxle murmurs, “I want you to fuck me.”

He is pressed harder against the jut of the desk, but the look Artemis gives him is tense. “I don’t—”

 _I don’t sleep with men_ , Jarlaxle hears him say—except that he couldn’t even say it, when he tore himself away from Jarlaxle in the sitting room. He sounds uncertain now.

It is perplexing: to the best of Jarlaxle’s knowledge, southlanders care little about men taking male lovers. While he was in Calimport it seemed just another manner of living.

“Very well,” he says, “there are other things we—”

“No,” Artemis breathes.

“No?”

“I will try.”

He searches Artemis’ face for disgust, knowing that if he finds it he won’t touch Artemis again. He has slept with plenty of men who claimed not to be interested in men; he doesn’t much care what they call it, what excuses they give to themselves, so long as they’re willing and eager and what they seek is pleasure. But he won’t be anyone’s bad habit, their means of self flagellation.

He finds nothing of that kind, and when they kiss again it is hungry, mutual; it is like swallowing heat. “Come,” he says. “The furniture in here is hardly suitable.”

“Which means you’ve used it anyway,” says Artemis, with a suggestion of a smile, and Jarlaxle sees his own anticipation in Artemis’ dark eyes.

“I don’t regularly have sex on my desk, no.” He bites at Artemis’ mouth. “Hard on the hipbones, you see.”

“As if that would stop you.”

“Come,” Jarlaxle says again.

 

* * *

 

The room lies in a deep shadowy golden light. The oil lamps and clusters of wax candles are lit, and the bed has been stripped and dressed in fresh linen and silk, scented with lavender.

Jarlaxle closes the door. Belt and boots left behind, he walks Artemis backward, pressing slow, languorous kisses to his mouth.

Against his lips, Artemis says, “Do your mechanical servants know when you’re about to—”

“It’s uncanny, really.”

With a push he makes Artemis sit upon the bedside; then, bracing himself on Artemis’ shoulders, he climbs up to kneel over Artemis’ lap. They kiss again, and Artemis’ hands splay across his lower back, fingertips ruching up the silk against his skin.

Artemis mouths up the rim of his ear, tongue flickering over the tip. Jarlaxle groans, and sinks his hips upon Artemis’ groin, and feels the cooler air of Artemis’ inward gasp.

Jarlaxle considers himself epicurean about sex: one can never have too much of a good thing, so long as one has variety—which, since coming to the surface, he has certainly had. Many nights, many lovers, a thousand kinds of novelty and delight.

But this is—not usual. Too keen, too urgent, as though they are doing some other thing entirely. It feels _risky_ : not because it is prohibited, but because he might allow himself too much liberty. Even the slight, threatening pressure of Artemis’ teeth on his ear is too much—he hears himself make a wretched sound, his arousal like a deep trembling of his blood. There is a tension in his belly; he feels a little shaky, his skin too tight. It has been centuries since he felt like this.

At the end of the downward drag of Artemis’ hands, Artemis roughly palms his backside, and the swell in Artemis’ breeches rubs against him.

He breathes, “Are you thinking about it, _ssin’urn_?”

“Mn,” says Artemis, just a deep buzz of the throat, and he thrusts up.

Rutting his hips to incite them both, Jarlaxle is kissed again, fiercely. He plucks each grey bone button on Artemis’ shirt from its eye, and spreads his hands upon Artemis’ bare chest. Beautiful, he thinks. The shape of him, the contours of his muscles, his skin which looks a richer brown by this light.

His fingertips press at the almost invisible pearlish lacery of scar tissue across Artemis’ sternum and his ribs. He knows there are many more—and had they all night he would set himself to learning them like a cartographer.

Instead he shifts his weight forward and pushes on Artemis’ shoulder, turning him toward the silk pillows at the bedhead. “Lie back.”

But Artemis resists, and something goes through his face, too quick to identify.

Unease brings Jarlaxle to a still. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

After a moment Artemis allows himself to be turned, but now it is an uneasy desire on his face. He doesn’t lie down.

Jarlaxle slips from his lap and kneels on the mattress between his thighs. He lays a hand on Artemis’ knee, thumbing into the crease of the cloth, and smiles a little. “I want to use my mouth on you. Would that be… agreeable?”

The look in Artemis’ eyes is _devouring_. His breathing has picked up; there is a gleam of sweat on his cheeks and forehead. “Yes.”

“Lie back,” Jarlaxle tells him again; and he does, knees parting, hands plucking at the bedclothes. In the brassy light all his sharp angles glow, and he appears like a painting of a courtier in repose, the sort of subtly erotic work which might be sold at a Silverymoon auction for thousands of crowns.

Jarlaxle strokes up his thigh, thumb leading. Then he bends, and mouths at the swell of Artemis’ cock through the soft doeskin.

Artemis presses up, up. “ _Gods_ —”

“No, just me,” says Jarlaxle, letting his fingertips circle where his mouth was, and Artemis’ hips lift again, his face quite transfixed and suffering. “Although I’m flattered by the comparison.”

“Jarlaxle…”

Undoing the laces on Artemis’ breeches with his teeth seems too aggressive, so he fingers them loose and parts the undergarments, marvelling that he is being allowed to do so. He draws out Artemis’ cock, feeling the wet slide of the tip, and it curves generously against his palm.

“Quite a mouthful,” he says, and gives it a slow, firm stroke, and grins.

Artemis’ eyes close for a moment; he is trying to master himself. “How you—convince anyone to sleep with you is beyond me.”

Working him still more, “You tell me, _abbil_.”

Artemis groans, stirring his head restlessly. “You used to call me that all the time,” he says. “I assumed you were mocking me.”

“In the beginning, perhaps. A difficult word to use unironically among drow—the meaning is usually vicious.”

“And now?”

“As you can see, I’m not among drow,” Jarlaxle says, but that seems too glib. He tries again: “You could think of it as… as a kind of trade language. Among ourselves, I can use the word and mean—what I think surfacers mean, when they say ‘friend’. But it is more pertinent, because it is a meaning the language tries to forbid to me.”

Artemis nods. Few would understand, but he knows Artemis does—conversant in both languages, and conscious of the semantic gap between them, which is often treacherous.

Then Artemis touches his mouth, thumb stroking over his lower lip and into the crease. He slips out his tongue to flutter suggestively at the tip, then withdraws. “Yes?”

Artemis’ eyelashes sink. “Yes,” he breathes, the last syllable dissolving into sibilance.

Jarlaxle bows his head. The smell of the body is stronger here—clean, warm, a little brackish, and the rising thick scent of salt. At the first skim of his lips upon Artemis’ cock the muscle under his hand goes taut, so he does it again, slower.

“Ah—” He feels Artemis’ back jerk up.

“What is it, _abbil_?”

A gravelly sort of laugh. “Damn you.”

With the tight ring of his lips covering his teeth he slides his mouth down and up Artemis’ cock, one smooth motion, and then again and again, plying it with the flat of his tongue. He is a veritable _artist_ in this—centuries of practice—and he listens for breaks and hiccups of air, feels where and when the body holds its tension, to tell him how Artemis likes it.

Artemis’ palms slide up his neck, fingers clutching at the base of his skull, not rough but cautious, as though Artemis feels he needs to keep hold of Jarlaxle to reign him in.

So Jarlaxle plays up his submitting for all its worth, glancing up at Artemis through his eyelashes with a transparent, showy sort of meekness, and pushes a little against Artemis’ hands. Meeting resistance, he allows Artemis to take over control of his movement, and he relaxes his throat and sucks until his cheeks hollow.

“Oh,” Artemis is gasping, “oh, hells—” He isn’t letting himself thrust too hard, but Jarlaxle can feel him fraying. He decides to test that resolve, petting his fingers over Artemis’ strong, straining thigh and holding down his hip so that he can thrust only a little; and Artemis groans, a sound so low it sounds excavated from him, and spasms against his hand. “Oh, _hells_ —”

“Good?”

“How is it,” Artemis has to gulp for air, and Jarlaxle pulls off, letting him see his grin, “not even this stops your talking.”

“Honestly,” Jarlaxle says, with another grazing lick, “it is a gift.”

He presses his mouth to Artemis’ stomach, which is scattered with soft dark hair, and draws with his pointed tongue between the muscles. At the same time he drifts the edge of his fingernail up Artemis’s cock, until Artemis is quivering almost violently.

“Damn you—”

It is potent, reducing Artemis to a state beyond words; he is flush with it, and the drugging heavy pulse of his cock in his breeches is blurring all sensible thought. He crawls up the mattress, unlacing himself. Then he moves over Artemis, setting his hand upon the pillow, and lets his hips sink down upon Artemis’ hips.

As he does, Artemis _flinches_.

He stops, apprehension prickling his back. “What is it?”

Artemis shakes his head, and it seems to pass—Artemis reaches for him, stroking his hips with warm, strong hands.

He curls his spine, rubbing them together, and the friction sparks through his abdomen. Under him Artemis strains, head tipping back, and makes a taut sound. The sight of him is like a gut-shock—Jarlaxle feels more desperate than he would want, more desperate than is prudent, but how can he restrain himself, reign in his need, when he has hoped for this for a hundred years and yet considered it always impossible?

He shunts Artemis harder into the mattress. Catching one wrist, he pins it beside Artemis’ head, and bends down to kiss him, rough and wet. It is a dark little impulse which wants Artemis’ utter defeat, Artemis entirely at his will, and he tries to suppress it—but he likes this, having this powerful man under him, the slow wreck of that stiff and careful discipline.

“Afterward,” he pants, with another hard thrust, “I should like to take _you_. Would that—”

Artemis goes rigid beneath him. Suddenly Jarlaxle’s instincts flare with alarm, with the sudden expectation of attack. He summons a blade from his bracer, his hand closing around the hilt—but his wrist is caught and twisted _hard_ , and he hears a clatter on the floorboards.

Then Artemis grabs him by the neck.

At once Jarlaxle knows it isn’t play, because the hands are squeezing, _squeezing_ , so tightly he can’t even draw breath, and blackness already crawls around his vision. The grip is cutting off blood to his brain.

He thinks to use displacement magic, or his stoneskin enchantment—but the magic is spent. He tries for the whistle around his neck, and then his earring, but he is pitched over onto his back.

Artemis is going to kill him.

 _You fucking idiot_ , says a voice in his mind. It sounds like Zak—it is the thing in him which expects betrayal, proved right again. Artemis waited, he waited until Jarlaxle’s guard was down, until he was vulnerable. It was all—nothing, it was _nothing_ , an empty performance, and like a dupe he believed it because he wanted it to be true.

He is _furious_ , but apparently a fool to the last—beneath his rising panic, sadness.

For a moment he spasms as if about to vomit, but he can barely move or struggle. He is trapped by Artemis’ body, bearing down upon him, and his limbs feel weighted. Artemis is nothing if not efficient. Jarlaxle wonders how many people he has killed like this, with bare hands.

The few seconds seem an eternity. His eyes are turning sightless and dark, and Artemis’ face wavers before him as though seen from underwater. He has no air, he feels himself sagging—heavy and prone—and in a kind of sinking delirium he mouths, “Artemis—”

The hands let go.

He wheezes, gasping for air. Artemis is still on top of him, though no longer holding him down. Coughing and dizzy, he summons a dagger to his hand and starts to rise, calculating his retreat.

But Artemis isn’t pressing the attack—has fallen back to a kneel, shoulders hunched. He looks sickened, furious, a ragged sort of horror in his face.

Jarlaxle wants to lash out, his heart is lurching with fear and adrenaline, but Artemis’ posture gives him pause.

“Why—”

Artemis is shaking, so angry he seems beyond the articulation of it. Jarlaxle has seen him like this only once before, in Memnon, when—

And suddenly Jarlaxle knows—some, enough.

The abuses of drow society are so familiar to him as to be almost mundane. He thinks of Zak, drunk in his bed, eyes empty—Zak, who developed an appetite for being hurt Jarlaxle didn’t want to appease. He thinks of a lover who used to panic if held down, and scrubbed himself raw after they fucked. The lovers with grievous scars, the silent ones, the ones who couldn’t bear to be touched with kindness. He thinks of Braelin, who has had hallucinations of his legs swelling and splitting since he was turned into a drider and back. He thinks of Soluun, warped by mistreatment, butchering elves as he was taught. All parts of the same thing, enacted over, and over, and over. Drow society is abhorrent—but it is honest, in its own way.

The hypocrisies of surface dwellers are—something else. The things humans do to their own are no less appalling, but all that vileness goes on unseen, and meanwhile they pretend that they are good and civilised. Whatever was done to Artemis, he knows it is no more unusual than what is done in Menzoberranzan, only more hidden. Where Jarlaxle comes from, there is a kind of grim camaraderie among the wounded—once, it was the only reason his band held together. Among humans, there is only solitary shame.

He theorised once that it must take a great misfortune to create someone like this. It seems he didn’t know the half of it.

He lowers the dagger and dissipates it with a wave of his fingers, his anger draining out. He laces up his breeches, and crosses his legs, right hand upon the other bracer.

“Artemis,” he says, quietly, regretfully.

In a hollow sort of voice, Artemis says, “I’m fine.” He turns away, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, and begins to put his clothes in order. The movements are quick, sharp, fastidious.

“No, you are not.”

“I am—” Artemis begins, then seems to bite down hatefully on the words. “That doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to be coddled.”

“Fortunate, then, that I have no plan to do so.”

At last, Artemis looks at him. “I could have killed you.”

A part of Jarlaxle resists that, the very thought that he could run out of tricks, out of cards to play—his pride again—but they both know Artemis had him beaten. “I’m well aware,” he says. “Believe me.”

He feels stripped, denuded. Had it been anyone else, he would have killed them as soon as he was upright. Instead he is _relieved_ —the fingermarks on his throat are already swelling, but he is relieved, because it was only a horrible accident. Their time together wasn’t all a sham, a performance, some great pretence of feeling. It was real; perhaps too much so.

“When you said you do not sleep with men… I assume this is why.”

Artemis looks straight ahead, but nods. There is a silence.

“When?”

He sees Artemis’ mouth twitch—mocking; no, self mocking, and so much venom in it. “A long time ago.”

Long ago. Jarlaxle thinks about their journey to Memnon, and the man Artemis left on the floor of that dusty, falling-down house, bleeding from the belly. Not his ‘father’, nor the priest he threatened in the Protector’s House, but a man he remembered with an old, sick, swarming fear. _Uncle_. At the time, stealing glimpses into his mind, Jarlaxle hadn’t known what to make of it.

Guilt knots around his stomach even to recall it. Artemis will never know what he saw.

“I see,” he says. He is trying to collect himself, but he feels bludgeoned and dizzy, and the tipping of the cabin in the tide makes it only worse. “Would you—there is a healing draught on the bookshelf in my study, would you fetch it?”

Artemis leaves—without a snide remark, without any word at all.

Alone, Jarlaxle gets slowly to his feet and stands in front of the mirror to assay the damage. His throat is sore to the touch, and rising in bruises. He can see the swelling.

He sighs and rubs at the side of his face, grasping for his composure; but he is full of noisome alarm, his pulse not yet slowed. He feels brittle.

Kimmuriel was, it seems, prescient as ever. And he doesn’t know what to do with this thing he has learned.

 

* * *

 

It is a long time before Artemis reappears.

“Here.”

Holding out the draught, Artemis appears calm, cold, his eyes flat. The old armour—Jarlaxle smiles sadly to see it.

“Thank you, _abbil_.” He sits where Artemis was sat, and uncorks the vial. It hurts to swallow, so instead of drinking the stuff he pours some into his palm and daubs it straight onto the bruises. His hands are unsteady, which annoys him greatly.

All the while he is conscious of Artemis’ gaze. Then Artemis comes to sit beside him, and motions for the vial.

He smiles, but inwardly he recoils from the notion of Artemis touching his neck again. “It’s all right, I can…”

“Give it here,” Artemis says, flat.

“Really, it is…” But he relents—he doesn’t know why—and Artemis takes the vial. “Presumptuous,” Jarlaxle says.

“Where could I have learned that.”

“I’m sure I have no idea.” His pulse has sped up again.

He doesn’t flinch when Artemis touches him, two fingertips on his throat; but he is very aware of his own breathing, and the way his skin prickles, which isn’t quite pleasant. He never takes his hand off his bracer.

“You can scarcely see it at all,” he says. “It isn’t—”

“You were almost unconscious.”

“I’ve had much worse. I’ve had much worse _tonight_.”

Artemis grunts. His fingertips are gentle in their slow, sweeping motions; Jarlaxle considers it as much of an apology as Artemis can manage.

Gradually he relaxes, until he is tipping his head toward Artemis’ hand. The pain fades as if rinsed off. Paranoia still bubbles in him, but he finds no lie in what little Artemis has said. Certainly, it gives shape and clarity to what happened in Memnon. The several betrayals Artemis sought to pay back. And why their parting in the graveyard was so sudden and so bitter.

He watches Artemis put the empty vial aside. Everything seems in tatters. “What now?”

“I need a drink,” Artemis says.

 

* * *

 

“That has happened to you before.”

Three whiskies later, Artemis sounds more himself—which means he is asking questions Jarlaxle must dance around.

“Perhaps.”

They are sitting on the chaise, not quite touching. The Ostrav 1488 has been well dented by Artemis’ time in the city, but Jarlaxle can think of no one better to share it with.

“Is that an indictment of your technique, or…” A predictable jibe, but he can hear a certain dry sympathy in Artemis’ voice. The incident with Calihye wasn’t _very_ long ago.

“As inconceivable as it may seem,” he says, “I have made errors in the past. Gambles with my person that had… unfortunate consequences. When I was younger, and things were, ah, less secure.” He smiles, while hideously a memory tries to bore its way out. “More whisky?”

Artemis frowns. He never expects the truth, which is why Jarlaxle gave it to him.

“No,” he says. “Not now.”

Jarlaxle watches him set down his glass on the low table in front of them. Then Artemis takes him by the nape, and he is kissed, thoroughly.

He makes a soft, pleased hum. This is unexpected.

Artemis’ other hand knots in his doublet, then slips underneath and against his bare skin. A spike of desire goes through him, settling into a hot syrupy throb.

“Good?” Artemis murmurs.

“Very.”

He lets it occupy him until he is so conscious of Artemis’ touch that he can barely find room in his head for anything else. Artemis’ fingers move gently over his stomach. After a few moments he angles his head to bring their lips together again.

He feels Artemis’ breath across his mouth, and stubble prickles his skin. He rubs his cheek deliberately against it, then touches his tongue to Artemis’ lower lip and dips it inside.

As they kiss Artemis’ body leans into his, warm and solid. Artemis’ other hand slides under his doublet and begins to stroke his lower back.

He breaks away from Artemis’ lips for long enough to say, “You want to… continue?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

Artemis just looks at him, eyelids lowered so that he can see only a faint shine by the candlelight behind them. It is the most compelling thing Jarlaxle can imagine, but he can’t pretend his unease is gone.

“We should talk about—”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Artemis—”

“I will tell you—” Artemis stops, corrects himself, “try to tell you, someday. Not now.” Every word sounds like it is being dragged unwillingly out of him. “I cannot now.”

“All right,” Jarlaxle says. “Would you give me due warning, at least, if you feel the urge to wring my neck again?”

“I feel that at least ten times a day,” Artemis quips. Then, just as quick, he is solemn. “That will not happen again.”

“It might.”

“It will not. As long as…”

Jarlaxle nods. “I will follow your lead,” he says, smiling coyly, and Artemis’ mouth descends upon his once more.

They stumble to the bed. Artemis reaches for the front of his doublet and gets it undone with only a little fumbling and drags it halfway down his arms, restraining them at the elbows. Then he draws his lips down Jarlaxle’s neck, his shoulder, the swell of his bicep, seeming to enjoy the texture of Jarlaxle’s skin.

Jarlaxle starts to wrestle his arms out of the sleeves, but Artemis squeezes his elbow.

“Leave it.”

He lets his arms drop. “Of course, _abbil_.”

Resting back against the pillows, his arms trapped in an awkward tangle of bloodied silk, he cants up his hips, displaying himself, and Artemis leans over him. Warm, callused hands stroke his sides and belly, and Artemis skims a thumb over his nipple, testing his reaction—at his gasp, Artemis’ eyes grow hot.

The hand slopes low, lower, and Artemis begins to unlace his breeches; then hesitates. Jarlaxle senses him struggling with himself—a thin grimace—and how bitterly he hates that Jarlaxle can see it.

“You don’t have to—”

“Give me a moment,” Artemis snaps.

Staring will only add to Artemis’ discomfort, so instead he watches Artemis’ hands, which tighten and relax their grip on the cloth, and after a moment of indecision he presses a kiss to Artemis’ stubbled chin. When Artemis doesn’t recoil, he kisses Artemis’ mouth slowly, coaxingly.

“Whatever you like,” he murmurs. He feels the laces tugged open.

It is just a pass of Artemis’ fingertips, the lightest touch, but it sets off a cascading shiver through his belly. Then a firmer touch, fingers sliding down his cock, feeling him over; and finally a slow, slow pull from root to end in his fist.

“Mm… that’s good.” He lets his smile deepen into his cheeks in encouragement, but he feels jittery—every sensation is much deeper and more perilous than if it were anyone else doing this to him. He doesn’t have to exaggerate his reactions; if anything, he is trying to tamp them down.

Another, and another, and his mind muddles sweetly. “Ah,” he hears himself say, “ _ah_ , yes—”

All too soon Artemis stops, and begins to work his breeches down. Jarlaxle lifts his hips to shimmy them down further, and with a few savage tugs Artemis drags them from him.

“If these were any tighter,” Artemis says, throwing them aside, “they’d be impossible to remove. I should just—”

“Are you thinking about cutting my clothes off?”

“No,” says Artemis, but there was a hesitation.

“Really? You’ve always been so critical of them—are you sure you wouldn’t like the chance to _ruin_ them?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“And on the contrary, they fit me rather well. I know you noticed—repeatedly, all night.” It is a bluff, he has no idea—except that Artemis blinks, and his lips part, just that tiny expression, and now Jarlaxle does know. “Which, of course, I cannot blame you for.”

“If you’re going to extol the virtues of your own arse, I’m going to—”

“Why, I hope you’ll do plenty to it.”

“Stop,” says Artemis, and Jarlaxle is laughing when they kiss again. Quickly it becomes several, and each sweep of Artemis’ hands over his body staggers him, and then Artemis sucks on the lobe of his ear with the gold ring through it, pulling out a kind of whimper Jarlaxle wishes he could swallow back down. Restrained, he can only manage brief skimming touches of Artemis’ hip and thigh and cock, enough to make Artemis’ breathing scatter against his skin.

“I assume you have oil,” Artemis pants. “Probably gallons of it.”

“And you have— _ah_ —a very colourful imagination.” He gestures, the little he can, to the drawers beside the bed. “Over there—top drawer.”

Artemis rises, and he hears it rattle open—then a silence. Out of vengeance for the comment, he has sent Artemis to his drawer of toys and other curiosities.

“Jarlaxle.”

He opens his eyes. Artemis is looking into it with a trepidatious expression.

As innocently as he can muster, he says, “Yes?”

Artemis sighs. “Never mind.”

“Ah, how silly of me. I meant the second drawer down.” Artemis opens that one instead and selects at random a jar with a label in Chondathan. “Not that one, the other—red lid.”

“Is there a difference,” says Artemis, and then appears to regret the question.

“That one is enchanted to, ah, _heighten_ the experience—the sensation is delicious, you feel it for hours. But this time I’d like to feel only you.”

Artemis nods, a faint pink risen in his face.

“And bring me that stone, the one like an opal—yes, that’s it.” Artemis takes out the thinner jar with the red lid and the milky iridescent stone and comes back to the bed. He sets the jar on the bedside table.

Jarlaxle raises his caught arms. “Would you—”

He doesn’t expect Artemis to seize the back of the doublet, his dagger suddenly in his hand, and this time Jarlaxle can’t control his flinch. There is a thin livid _hiss_ of silk, and he feels the doublet part in two halves.

“Artemis—” The bloody cloth is stripped from him, and he sighs. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Artemis says, the corner of his mouth lifting.

“You are forbidden to go anywhere near my wardrobe,” Jarlaxle says, even as he grabs at Artemis’ collar.

Together they scrabble off Artemis’ grey shirt and bloodied breeches, which seem to be tightening by the minute. The body underneath is a revelation, like the first time Jarlaxle saw it rain, the first time he tasted honeycomb, the first time he heard someone playing a viol. A kind of awe goes through him. They sink together, Artemis seeming just as hungry for him, a daze of flesh under his limbs, hands, lips, tongue, teeth.

He feels a faint disturbance when Artemis removes the bracers from his wrists. He reaches behind his own neck to unclasp his several necklaces, dropping the glinting clinking heap onto the bedside, and a lick of anxiety goes through his stomach at the feeling of being so divested. Yes, he still has his rings, the fine bracelet on his other wrist, the hoop through his ear, a bedside drawer full of weapons; but even with those, he couldn’t stop—

No, he thinks. No: all is well—better than well.

As Artemis kisses his neck, fingers strumming at his collarbone, he takes the stone and mutters the Elvish command word, “ _tasa_ ,” and an odd cold fizzing passes over his skin and inside him, like something astringent. At the inquiring glance, he says:

“Prestidigitation. I like things to be… clean.”

“Oh.” Artemis’ expression is rather endearing.

Turning toward the headboard, Jarlaxle arches his back suggestively. He hears a low, soft laugh, and Artemis moves around behind him.

“The only other person present is me,” says Artemis, “and I am not impressed.”

But those lovely roughened hands smooth down his shoulders, thumb drawing his spine, and he feels Artemis’ mouth on his lower back—over his kidney, he thinks, with a twinge that isn’t quite alarm—and it is warm and gentle and diligent, and unexpectedly he is seared by it.

“We don’t have much time,” Artemis murmurs against his skin.

“Don’t think about that,” Jarlaxle says, throat brimming. “You are here, I am here—that is all.”

They kiss again over his shoulder, and he takes Artemis’ hand. They are lovely hands, he thinks; there is an entire life written upon them in scars and calluses. The thought becomes darker, sadder; he has to pull himself from it.

He dips Artemis’ fingers into the oil, up to the first knuckles. “Get them nice and wet,” he says, and Artemis obeys, slicking his fingertips still more. “That’s it.”

“You’re obscene.”

“Oh, certainly. Now—”

He can’t resist rutting a little against the bedclothes as Artemis opens him. Artemis’ long, slim fingers are a hesitant, and when he glances back Artemis is watching his responses with a kind of stern bafflement. So careful, and Artemis’ breaths come short and tense upon his shoulder.

“Breathe, _abbil_ ,” he says, though he is hardly better off. “There is no need to be cautious.”

“Are you going to babble the entire time?”

“Well, in the absence of _stimulating_ conversation, I must amu—” The sudden curl of Artemis’ finger is a shock of heat. “Ah!” A lovely chill follows it; sweat on his spine. “ _Xas_ , another—” Arousal is swimming through him. He reaches down to touch himself.

“Presumptuous again,” Artemis says, voice sharp and amused. “Put your hands where I can see them.” Grinning, Jarlaxle places them flat upon the pillow.

Two fingers up him, then three; he bears down against the funny, filthy stretch, breathing in long shuddering gasps. Artemis has found his target and is stroking it over and over, now delicate, now forceful, and those motions become waves of sensation rolling through Jarlaxle’s hips and groin. “Yes, harder—”

“I believe your words were, ’Whatever you like’,” Artemis says against his ear, but he works his fingers in earnest, and Jarlaxle laughs and twists and groans at it, juddering his hips, until—

“Now,” he says, suddenly. “Now—”

As hoped, the order comes: “On your back.”

He slumps over in the sheets, and is met with the sight of Artemis palming his own cock with oil, eyes closed and jaw set. Arousal rings like a deep round note through Jarlaxle’s body, higher and lower; a peaking anticipation.

Then Artemis bends over him, sweaty and beautiful, and they reach for each other, both of them fumbling, and Artemis’ damp hands slip on his hips as he tips them up.

A shallow thrust, and another—then a steady, hot press, and he feels himself open to it, knees sliding against Artemis’ sides, stretched and caught and held.

“Ah—” It is exquisite, almost too much. “Artemis—”

Artemis curses; a word Jarlaxle doesn’t know, likely Alzhedo. Artemis is trembling, and Jarlaxle can hear it in his open mouthed breathing, and feel it where they are joined.

“Too much?”

“Yes,” Artemis manages. Then his hips jerk, and he pushes all the way in.

Jarlaxle groans, and for a moment the pleasure spills over into a brilliant, stupefying numbness—he is so very full, and there is an edge of pain which only heightens it. This part of sex he relishes in particular—his whole being feels tight, hot, made to yield—but it is still more intense with Artemis looking at him like this.

When he comes back to himself, he is being gripped severely, and the heat between them is sweltering. He murmurs, “Good?”

“Yes,” Artemis says, sounding dazed and out of breath, and Jarlaxle thinks he would never tire of that. “Are you—”

“Oh, yes,” and he leans up to kiss that lovely open mouth, “yes—” Pleased and overfull, he arches his back, paddling his toes in the bunched sheets.

Artemis begins to move inside him, and the many thrilling notes of each variation are overswept by the theme, the deep and rising ache. Artemis’ other hand scrabbles against his hip, his belly, too light to be called grasping, but suggesting need.

“That’s it, yes— _ah_ —” He thinks he might be lapsing into Drow, but he knows Artemis will understand whichever tongue he uses, “ _xas_ , you’re, you’re doing well—”

“I don’t,” Artemis’ voice has dropped to its lowest timbre, “—need your encouragement—” Jarlaxle leans up, moving his hips in heavy, insistent circles, and Artemis makes an inarticulate sound, dark head sinking toward his shoulder.

“Well, you look as though as though you might have a heart attack, I worry for your health—”

“Hells,” Artemis breathes, “shut up, shut up—” And Jarlaxle laughs, and kisses the corner of his mouth, his prickly jaw, his chin, and luxuriates in how Artemis feels inside him, how deeply he is split.

“Put your back into it then, old man.”

“How dare you,” Artemis says, and fucks hard into him, dissolving whatever thought was going to come next. “I’d be more concerned about whether you can take it.”

“ _Thal Uoi’nota_ —” It is difficult even to speak, but he persists, “I can—take much more than this—”

“Is that an insult—”

“No—certainly not—”

“Good,” another thrust, “because I can always leave you to,” Artemis gestures with his eyes toward the drawer, “your own devices. You—apparently have plenty.”

“Is that jealousy?” Jarlaxle says, lapping at his lip.

“Hardly.”

This is different, Jarlaxle thinks. He feels peeled open for Artemis’ eyes, his face impetuous and overflowing, when his habit would be to dissemble and obscure himself. And yet Artemis seems no less vulnerable, in his surprise, his pleasure, and that muted thoughtful disquiet when he looks at Jarlaxle.

Far more than last time, they have the means to wound each other, and the only assurance against it is an agreement neither of them will speak. Jarlaxle knows equal leverage and stalemate, he knows _z’ress_ and _jivvust abbanen_. The logic which tells him that to betray is always the sounder choice. He has no words for this—his native tongue fails him, and the Common words are slippery as fish. He knows only that he would like Artemis to keep looking at him like that.

Their motion now is so deep and forceful he feels it in his gums, the cores of his bones. Artemis breathes, “Is this—”

“ _Jalbol… dos z’ress_ ,” Jarlaxle says, and it is getting away from him, this pleasure, this terrible care. “Whatever you will. Anything, everything—”

Artemis grins, like bared teeth. “Don’t make— _ah_ —promises you can’t keep—”

“Never,” Jarlaxle says, grinning himself, and hears the rumble of laughter in Artemis’ chest. The thrusts become short, fast, jagged.

“Jarlaxle—”

It is the sound of Artemis saying his name, or those half-lidded grey eyes, or the recklessness of what they are doing. The end rushes quickly up—everything in him pulling tight, tighter—and then Artemis shudders helplessly, and his open raw hot mouth pulses upon Jarlaxle’s throat where his hands left bruises not very long ago, and Jarlaxle is brimming over, panting, crying out, as all seems to burst and break and dissolve.

And at the end of it is the tired, warm awareness of Artemis inside him, over him, holding him tight enough to crack bone. He is oversensitive; sets his teeth against a gasp when Artemis gives a last spasm—pulses of warmth in him—and comes to a still.

“Gods,” he hears Artemis mutter.

He smiles. “Again, _abbil_ , ’tis only I.” This earns him a swatting motion by his face.

Then Artemis rests his damp forehead against Jarlaxle’s, mouth open and breathing the same heated air. For a moment something melancholy passes between them, and Jarlaxle’s throat tightens. Out of reflex he wants to push it away, but it occurs to him that it is part of what they share, as those upon whom the world has bestowed great misfortune and—sometimes, capriciously—fortune.

Many times it was both bitter and sweet between them, and he was wilfully ignorant—of Artemis’ pain, or his own, or the rare, unexpected pleasure in their friendship. Too concerned with playing it like a game, like a _sava_ match he meant to win; and so he cheated himself of everything.

He strokes Artemis’ cheek, lips grazing here and there. “You were wonderful,” he murmurs.

From Artemis a drowsy hum; he thumbs at Jarlaxle’s ear and catches Jarlaxle’s mouth with a languid slide of his lips. “No complaints.”

Jarlaxle begins to protest, but it becomes a grunt when Artemis slips out of him. They prise apart in the wreck of sheets and pillows.

Fumbling for the stone, he uses it to clean himself and then Artemis, and drags a silky throw over them both.

Artemis closes his eyes. Jarlaxle turns over, and draws with his eye the sweep of Artemis’ cheek, the darker shape of his lips, the damp soft wave of hair fallen upon his forehead. This beautiful face, with all its cleverness and suffering. It is like fastening his fingers around something solid but trembling, which might at any moment change shape in his hands.

“You are staring,” Artemis murmurs.

“I am,” Jarlaxle says. At last, he settles back down against Artemis’ side.

Lying there, he listens to the waves, the wind, the creakings of the ship; and he wonders at what fate has dealt to him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ssinjin haska_ : lit. 'sweet-talking'  
>  _dos ph’inbauin sel’tur_ : ‘you are getting soft’  
>  _ssin’urn_ : ‘beatiful’  
>  _Thal Uoi’nota_ : 'Nine Hells'  
>  _z’ress_ : ‘will', 'strength’ or ‘dominance’, _viz._ 'that which physically or psychologically overpowers'.  
>  _jivvust abbanen_ : ‘playing allies’  
>  _jalbol dos z’ress_ : ‘whatever you will’  
>  _xas_ : ‘yes’


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, the FR calendar goes [like this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendars_in_the_Forgotten_Realms). [Deadwinter](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Midwinter) (Midwinter) falls between Hammer (January) and Alturiak (February).
> 
> Artemis and Jarlaxle arrive in Vaasa in late summer 1368 in _Promise of the Witch-King_.
> 
> I... won't pretend the timeline for this fic makes any sense at all.

 

“If you’ve expired, to whom should I send your effects?”

It earns the quiet laugh Jarlaxle hoped for. “Don’t flatter yourself.” Artemis’ voice is burred and drowsy. “I haven’t died yet tonight, despite efforts from several quarters.”

“Ah, but one may speak of the ‘little death’, no? In which case—”

“No,” says Artemis. “One may _not_.”

He laughs, and brushes his lips against Artemis’ shoulder. An arm slopes around him to drape over his back.

At length, Artemis opens his eyes. “What time is it?” His fingers move idly, gently, over Jarlaxle’s hip.

Although he is loath to do it, Jarlaxle looks at the clock. A quarter after five—in two hours there will be light in the sky, and most of the City Watch will be coming on shift, and the manhunt will begin in earnest.

“Late,” he says. “Too late.”

 

* * *

 

“I had your things fetched from your inn room.”

Artemis looks up from buttoning his silk shirt. “You mean, you had it broken into a _second_ time.”

“Yes. And I should return—” Jarlaxle reaches into his sack of holding and finds the gauntlet first, slithering his hand and wrist inside so that he can grasp Claw’s hilt and draw the sword out. “This.”

It only occurs to him now, as he leans the sword against the chaise and slips off the gauntlet for Artemis to take, that Artemis gave Claw to him for safekeeping without any visible hesitation or doubt, even knowing that Jarlaxle could use it to control him. He doesn’t know what to make of that.

Artemis doesn’t move to put on the gauntlet or pick up the sword. Every part of his demeanour conveys that Claw is a loathed thing.

“Did you forget about it?”

“Almost,” says Artemis. “For a while.”

Jarlaxle leaves the rest of Artemis’ effects on the chaise, and approaches him. He smooths down the front of Artemis’ silk shirt, enjoying the texture of the damask and the shape of his chest through it. “You know, I’m rather fond of this.”

“I didn’t buy it for you.”

“I know. Will you wear the breeches for me again sometime? They were _so_ …” Artemis has changed them for black leather, but Jarlaxle can’t resist a wide-handed stroke of his thigh, watching for an effect.

Artemis’ eyes lid a little. “I’m not—a doll.”

“No, you certainly aren’t.” Jarlaxle digs in his fingertips. “I like you in fine things, is that so terrible?”

“It’s impractical.”

“I happen to know you’re capable of being _impractical_ on occasion.” He hears Artemis exhale, a shade of a laugh. “Would you let me buy you more, like this shirt?”

“You’re absurd.”

“Is that a yes?”

“You might as well toss your money into the sea.”

“Money is only good for two things—the making of _more_ money, and the pursuit of pleasure. It would please me, so it is a good use for my money.”

“You are incorrigible,” Artemis says.

“Indeed,” Jarlaxle replies. “You may add it to the list.”

Sidling his hand downward, he palms Artemis’ cock through the smooth soft leather. Artemis gives a low glottal groan which goads him on, and he pulses his hand again and again.

“We haven’t—” The shadows move on Artemis’ face and rove through his hair. He is gripping the bedpost so tightly his knuckles stand out; his head tips up as his chest swells with a great breath. “We haven’t time.”

“I can be quick.”

“Confident of that, are you.”

“Do you doubt my—” He is interrupted by another knock at the door.

Artemis says, between clamped teeth, “Damn it.”

Jarlaxle can’t help but laugh as they pull reluctantly apart and Artemis tries to straighten his clothes.

“Come!”

Valas slips around the door, and keeps a remarkably straight face at the sight of them, both under-dressed and dishevelled. He offers Jarlaxle a short bow, which he would never do if they were speaking in private.

“Valas. You have news?”

Agreeably, when Valas speaks it is in Common, but Jarlaxle can see him sifting what he was going to say. “We—understand that the City Watch has put out a warrant for the arrest of Jaufre de Constantin, and another for Erystian Demarne.” His Common is accented: the characteristic tense, complicated vowels and irregular patterns of emphasis. “And a reward for information on their whereabouts, besides.”

“How much?” Jarlaxle asks. Perhaps it might be a worthwhile endeavour to ‘turn in’ Erystian, claim the reward, then have him disappear—his mind darts down that avenue.

“Five thousand for Jaufre. Three hundred for Erystian.”

“Only three hundred?”

“Well,” says Valas, “it appears Erystian didn’t _kill_ anyone himself—and based on the discussions we’ve overheard, the Watch would struggle to indict him for anything more than ‘accessory to murder’, and even that seems… tenuous.”

“ _Accessory_ , indeed,” says Jarlaxle, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Artemis’ mouth twitch.

“Jaufre is the one they want,” Valas says. “They questioned one of Thann’s bodyguards, who told them the identity of Thann’s murderer, later confirmed by eyewitnesses. The investigation will no doubt be vast and lengthy.” He addresses Artemis. “So unless you’re content to remain hidden on this ship for a long while, I’d advise you to leave quickly, and stay away.”

“I mean to.”

They had known it would go like this; and yet hearing it aloud is another cruelty—like the Massalan clocktower tolling midnight again.

“You should be aware that they’re marshalling considerable resources,” Valas goes on, “although some will be diverted by the second inquest.”

“In pursuit of what?” Jarlaxle asks.

“They found on Thann’s body a list of names signed by his killer. The document outs him as a Masked Lord.”

And Jarlaxle thinks, with a pulse of warmth: ah, _Artemis_. “How interesting.”

“We haven’t been able to get a copy of it, but—”

“No matter, I’m quite aware of the contents. Most of them, anyway.”

“The Watch immediately stepped up the investigation, although the Open Lord hasn’t yet confirmed Thann’s status. They’ve also questioned a handful of those named in the letter, as persons of interest.”

“And?”

“They have some interesting tales to tell, tales they didn’t feel at liberty to disclose earlier—about Thann’s conduct toward them, and others like them. Some have asked to speak to the High Captain. To head off a scandal breaking in the broadsheets, the Watch will be conducting a separate investigation into Thann himself.”

“Well, well,” Jarlaxle says, grinning. Artemis, for his part, gives nothing away. “Is there any sense of how long the hunt for Thann’s killer will go on, if it yields no fruit?”

Valas shrugs. “Murders happen in Waterdeep all the time—but the murder of a Masked Lord is different, of course. The public appetite for it will probably wane when news of Thann’s corruption gets about, but the Watch has to be seen to take it seriously… Months, at least.”

“Yes,” says Jarlaxle, feeling heavy. “As I expected.”

“That’s all.”

“Thank you.”

Valas makes his quiet escape, stepping aside to let in a nimblewright bearing a breakfast tray for two. The tray is set down on the table before the chaise.

Jarlaxle waits until they they are alone once more, then turns sharply to Artemis. “You planted the list on him. You _signed_ it.”

“I didn’t sign it.”

“Then you had someone else do it.”

“To strengthen the case against Jaufre,” Artemis says,

Jarlaxle gestures him toward the table. “Come, eat.” They sit down together. “No, there was already plenty of evidence against Jaufre, not least Corylus addressing him in public _by name._ That list implicates _Corylus_.”

Artemis shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe.” He reaches for the coffee pot. His hand brushes Jarlaxle's, but Jarlaxle doesn't react: he is thinking. 

“Corrupt politicians aren’t in short supply, here or anywhere. He was hardly notable.”

“He offended me,” Artemis says.

“Why?”

“Because of him, I was forced to carry you out of there half-alive.” Artemis pours coffee for both of them. “As I said before—you’re heavier than you look.” The clink of the pot as he sets it down punctuates his punchline; and his eyes flick up to look at Jarlaxle, wry. 

“And I believe I warned you then about throwing about such _slander_ ,” Jarlaxle says, but warmth sparks in some receded cavity of his chest, and steadily fills him up. Artemis did it for vengeance—for him.

They eat warm sugared almond pastries, and Artemis complains about the coffee, which he calls ‘insipid’ even as he drinks plenty of it. Afterward Jarlaxle licks the smudges of powdered sugar off his fingertips, and when he sees Artemis looking he does it again, drawing it out.

Artemis gives him that soft, low laugh. “You’ve been seducing nobles too long.”

“Are you claiming to be immune?” He reaches for Artemis’ hand, and slips the first finger’s tip into his mouth, tasting sweetness.

“No,” Artemis says. Jarlaxle’s fingertips leave faint prints of sugar on his cheek as they kiss, and Artemis pushes him up hard against the arm of the chaise, grasping at his hips. Between them the air is so close that it almost crackles; the sex has barely taken the edge off. It seems like a fleeting glimpse of—something else, something new.

He nips at Artemis' neck and says, “Once more, for the road?”

Artemis groans, and rests his forehead against Jarlaxle’s shoulder. “No time.”

“Then it will be something for you to think about, on the journey home.”

Artemis gives him a rather rude gesture and they go separate ways, Jarlaxle into his dressing room. When he emerges, Artemis is in black leather head to foot, that sleek silhouette, with his hair tied back neatly. Jarlaxle wears his eyepatch and hat, his bracers and many necklaces, and a dashing ensemble in Bregan D’aerthe colours.

It is time to resume their usual parts. Oddly, the thought is tinged with disappointment.

A nimblewright enters, and returns to Artemis the beautiful grey coat and doublet, cleaned and mended as if they were new. “Take these with you,” Jarlaxle says. “You might have occasion to wear them again some day.”

Artemis raises an eyebrow. “For you.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps we’ll steal our way into another high-society occasion to murder a vicious politician—who can say?”

"Indeed." He watches Artemis stow them away. And with his hand on the door handle, he kisses Artemis a last time.

They walk together on the upper deck, which has been brushed clean of snow. Jarlaxle can almost let himself believe that they are about to embark on another journey—the seas laid out before them, a vast map for their choosing—instead of parting ways, and going to opposite ends of the continent. He will stay here and do his duty to those who depend upon him; and Artemis, far away, will do likewise.  

But they must be pragmatic, of course. He makes the arrangements with a strange heaviness of heart.

To Artemis he says, “I assume you don’t wish to be teleported anywhere—”

“No.”

“Then Fel’rekt will show you out of the city via the underground tunnels: he knows them better than any. You will have to be quick—the Watch will likely seal them off as soon as they have enough men to do so.”

“Fine.”

“Naturally there’ll be fewer ships making the trip this time of year, but…”

“I have this.” Artemis draws out from a pouch on his belt a black glossy figurine Jarlaxle knows well, for he has the twin of it.

“You kept it,” he says, a warmth expanding under his ribs.

“Of course,” Artemis says. “Why would I get rid of the only useful thing you have ever given me.”

Jarlaxle feels his lips tighten at that, but he lets it alone. “Well then, you’ll make good time to Baldur’s Gate.” It isn’t so very far to Calimport, he thinks—less than two thousand miles. How hollow that thought sounds. “And when things are a little less— _hostile_ , and you find yourself in the North again… you know where to find me.”

“As if I could forget.”

“Ah, and I’m not at the docks… go to The Bear, tell them you're looking for Galien Moreau. They know how to find me.”

“How many of these disguises do you have?”

“Countless,” Jarlaxle replies, even as Artemis rolls his eyes. “I am a man of many faces.”

There is much more to say, to do—but there is no more time. He knows they are being watched, and that Artemis would hate any sort of display, so he simply smiles and tips his hat and says:

“Goodbye, Artemis.”

Artemis says quietly, with an expression Jarlaxle can’t read, “Fare well.” He steps into the boat, where Fel’rekt is waiting.

Jarlaxle stands at the _Eyecatcher_ ’s prow, looking out to sea, instead of watching the boat descend into the water. He hears the _plash-plash_ of oars, the slap of water against the hull—but it might be merely the endless wash to which he has grown so accustomed.

From behind he hears Valas approach, and a quiet clearing of the throat. “I thought you might wish to know,” Valas says, “that one of our informants in Ship Rethnor is claiming to have information on the Captain’s plans for expansion, including a turf war near the North Gate. Things are becoming… heated.”

“Ah.” He turns, pulling himself from thoughts of Artemis. “That old contested territory—they’ll be fighting over it until Luskan is rubble, probably.”

“Probably. And… there’s something arrived from your brother.”

“Wonderful,” Jarlaxle says dryly. “Yes, put it all on my desk, I’ll attend to it.”

When Valas has gone he takes a spyglass from his pouch and raises it to his uncovered eye. Twisting the lens brings it into focus, and he sees the rowboat, small and dark on the dark water, and its two figures. The one sitting at the rear is still, and though Jarlaxle can’t clearly discern the face beneath the cowl, he thinks Artemis is looking back toward the ship. As inscrutable as ever.

Hearing one of his men come onto the deck, he quickly lowers the spyglass and tucks it into his pocket, and turns away. From the other rail, he watches the day arrive.

The snow has fallen thick in the night; the city is buried and serene. Around the wide harbour lamps are being lit in warehouses and homes and shops, and along the sea front. He sees the lights spring up one by one, like the many eyes of the city being woken.

Farther along a town crier in red livery is ringing a bell, his head tipped up as he proclaims the news. The cries don’t reach the ship, but Jarlaxle can imagine what grand and improbable stories will be told in Waterdeep this morning; and despite the ache in his chest, he smiles to himself.

It is Deadwinter Day. The play goes on.

 

* * *

 

  
_Epilogue_  

  
_Alturiak 14, 1503 DR_

 

 _My dear Artemis,_  

_Greetings from the City of Splendors!_

_Here the celebrations for the Grand Revel are in full swing. There is much dancing, some rather risqué, and the Baker’s Guild does a roaring trade in confections—it puts me in mind of sweeter things._

_Yet the winter lingers most heavily. Conditions remain hostile, and regrettably at present an outsider seeking to enter our fair city would be met with considerable inhospitality. I am hopeful, however, that soon the prevailing wind will change and we shall be granted fairer skies._

_It is traditional on this day to send the object of your affection a token. I recalled your measurements (vividly), and had Drury make something for you. The colour is most cheerful, no?_

_I hope you fare well, and better than well._

_Sincerely,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

 

_27 Alturiak, 1503 DR_

 

_Jarlaxle,_

_I am sending your man back with this. Next time, tell him not to linger by my villa. I’ve allowed your associates to lurk for years, but if I see a wizard within ten feet of my window I will not hesitate to deal with him._

_The shirt was abominable, and it gave me great pleasure to burn it._

  _—A._

 

* * *

 

_Ches 12, 1503 DR_

 

_My dear Artemis,_

_Greetings from the Crown of the North!_

_Behind closed doors and in secret circles the jostling for the seat of Masked Lord continues. Our favoured candidate seems likely to draw the required number of votes. Undoubtedly she will make a better go of it than her predecessor, who has been quite savaged in the broadsheets in recent months. She is very honourable, and shall be easy to manipulate. But then, they are all easy to manipulate._

_I hope business is thriving, and that it brings you pleasure still._

_In light of the hostility with which my previous gift was received, I have endeavoured to find something that might be more to your liking. I enclose it here._

_Sincerely,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

_21 Ches, 1503 DR_

 

_Jarlaxle,_

_I warned you. Frankly, your man is lucky to still have all his limbs. Is he in the south purely to deliver your messages?_

_Business goes well enough: the nobles are imbecilic, and my services are ever in demand. After some number of years, however, the contracts seem indifferently alike. It has been some time since I was presented with any kind of challenge or excitement._

_The ring is agreeable._

_—A._

 

* * *

 

_Tarsakh 13, 1503 DR_

 

_My dear Artemis,_

_Tarsakh is a month of contrasts—snow, wind, rain, hail, and the brief yet brilliant intervals of sunshine. It reminds me how wondrously various the surface is._

_Another carnival has come and gone, this one in honour of Waukeentide. It is a lively affair, a celebration of wealth and trade, lasting several days—crowds, free-flowing wine, and a gala festival with dancing late into the night. (Kimmuriel cannot complain when our pockets are so deeply filled.)_

_I will shortly be embarking upon a trip to the Underdark, for the purposes of meeting the new matron mother of Faen Tlabbar. Like her many predecessors, she is a sadist and a bore._

_The political situation in Menzoberranzan is more delicate than it has been in centuries, and it has been proposed that I should spend more of my time there for the foreseeable future—as much as half. Certainly, it would be best for the company that I agree._

_My men will trouble you no more. Send your reply via the Temple of Selûne in Calimport; my men can collect whatever you send._

_Sincerely,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

_Mirtul 9, 1503 DR_

 

  
_My dear Artemis,_

_It has been some tendays since your last—you must be greatly in demand. Do not let the nobles run you ragged!_

_In recent days it seemed that conditions were becoming impossible, and it would be difficult even for us to remain here—but with some quick thinking it has been averted. Sometimes I surprise even myself!_

_In other news, Erystian Demarne, former actor and wanted ‘accessory to murder’, was sighted in Candlekeep yesterday. I understand the Ciy Watch are most irate._

_Meanwhile, Jaufre de Constantin has publicly denied the murder of Corylus Thann—of course!—and remains far beyond the jurisdiction of the Watch or the Council._

_I hope to hear from you soon._

_Sincerely,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

_13 Mirtul, 1503 DR_

 

_Jarlaxle,_

_I apologise for this belated reply. Last month the city was struck by an outbreak of what is unimaginably termed ‘desert fever’. I was unexpectedly taken ill._

_It has been inconvenient, to say the least. There is now a veritable mountain of work to get through, and I will have to replace three of my people._

_—A._

 

* * *

 

  
_Mirtul 16, 1503 DR_

 

 _Artemis,_  

_Word reached me of the outbreak, and the many dead. Earlier reports failed to capture the severity._

_I am told it is a long time you have been abed. I hope you are much recovered._

_If there is anything at all you require, do not hesitate to send to me._

_Yours,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

  
_Mirtul 20, 1503 DR_

 

_Artemis,_

_I enclose a jar of music: a viol piece of my own composition, as yet untitled. I wrote it some years ago, but was inspired to revisit it recently. If nothing else, it may help you to fall asleep._

_Please rest._

_Yours,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

_24 Mirtul, 1503 DR_

 

_Jarlaxle,_

_I am fine, and resting plenty. If the illness were going to kill me it would have done so already, and we both know how lasting that would be._

_The convalescence has been tedious, and has made the city seem ~~like a~~ confining. From my window I see the ships going in and out of harbour, to parts of the world unknown. I find that I am restless._

_I was surprised to learn that your viol playing isn’t painful to the ear. I know little enough about music, but it provided excellent cover for the sounds of a nobleman dying of poison._

_I enclose a package of fine Almraiven coffee beans, unroasted. Real coffee, not the unspeakable tar Waterdhavians drink. I have more than I require, and I remember you enjoyed it—but perhaps your tastes have changed since 1367._

_—A._

 

* * *

 

_Kythorn 1, 1503 DR_

 

_My dear Artemis,_

_The coffee is excellent, I had almost forgotten. I can assure you that my appetite for some things remains unchanged—but I fancy I am even more discerning now than I was then._

_I recall you tend to lose your appetite during illness, so I enclose a spiced honey cake from a very fine bakery I frequent. There is a preserving charm on the box—it will be as warm and fresh as if it had just come out of the oven._

_Yours,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

_5 Kythorn, 1503 DR_

 

_Jarlaxle,_

_I do not require feeding, but the cake was as promised. I am grateful._

_I hope all is well with you._

_—A._

 

* * *

 

_Flamerule 2, 1503 DR_

 

_My dear Artemis,_

_A hale wind blows at last—it seems our long winter is over, and our city may once again open its roads and its gates to those it previously prohibited. I confess the interim has seemed at times rather dreary._

_I think often of the night we spent together. I hope it is as sweet in your recollection as it is in mine. I should like to have more—ah, at times I am clumsy in this tongue; but how else should I say it? I should like much more of you, as much as it pleases you to give._

_I know Calimport is particularly sweltering this time of year, enough to test even the sturdiest of constitutions. I enclose a bottle of the Orlov ’88, chilled in ice. I hope that you will enjoy it, and think of me._

_Yours,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

_8 Flamerule, 1503 DR_

 

_Jarlaxle,_

_I write from the courtyard of my villa, at the end of the hottest day of the year thus far._

_Business is quiet—many of the nobles and merchants have left for cooler regions, and the heat has much the same effect on the populace as Waterdeep’s bitter cold._

_The whisky is very good. It deserves to be savoured longer, but the recent tendays have been trying._

_I remember that night well; sometimes too well, it seems. I have thought about other nights, and the things I should like to do to you—to your ridiculous clothes, and your ridiculous mouth, and every other part of your ridiculous person, had we more time._

_The irony of all this is not lost on me; nor you, I imagine. As you like to remind me, I am very old—I have nothing but time. But I am tired of time that must be endured._

_—A._

 

* * *

 

_Flamerule 11, 1503 DR_

 

_My dear Artemis,_

_I will soon be leaving with the flagship for the island of Lantan. It is a long journey, but one which greatly benefits the company, else I am sure Kimmuriel would do everything possible to prevent my going._

_By coincidence I depart before dawn on the same date that we arrived in Vaasa all those years ago. Thankfully, the two places have little in common—the climate in the Chultan peninsula is most pleasant this time of year, and indeed all year round. It is a beautiful region, I dare say even you could not find it objectionable!_

_If I were not yoked by responsibility, it would please me to show it to you, among many other things._

_Yours,_

_J_

 

* * *

 

  
_16 Flamerule, 1503 DR_

 

_Jarlaxle,_

_I_ wish _you well on your travels. I have never seen that part of the world; it sounds less loathsome than the destinations to which you dragged me previously. I would not be opposed to seeing it—perhaps when you are no longer beholden to Kimmuriel’s directives, if such a day ever arrives._

_For myself, I will soon be travelling on business; there are some unresolved matters to which I should attend. I am tasked with finding a man named Galien Moreau and giving him what he deserves. It is a task more unorthodox than any I have undertaken in years; no doubt you will be far from these shores before that work is done._

_Yours,_

_A._

 

* * *

 

_Flamerule 20, 1503 DR_

 

_My dear Artemis,_

_This may be my last missive for some time—the seas are most unpredictable, as you well know. One can never tell when one’s voyage may be blown off course by forces unanticipated._

_The weather in the region is unusually temperate at present. If you are venturing near to Waterdeep, I would suggest you pack for warmer climes._

_I hope to see you again before long._

_Yours,_

_J._

 

* * *

 

  
It is a hot, calm night in Waterdeep.

The moon is going down, but pale and lusty like a jewel fastened on dark silk. From the harbour water comes the brisk smell of salt. A breeze flutters the feather on Jarlaxle’s hat and sways the lanterns on their lines.

“All the supplies are aboard,” Valas says, as two soldiers step out of the rowing boat onto the harbourside.

“Good.”

“Our other patrol is due any minute, they’ve been keeping up a perimeter. The Watch aren’t likely to be about, but—”

“It never hurts to be cautious,” Jarlaxle says. “You’ve left the nimblewrights aboard?” They are bringing all four, as the nimblewrights are able sailors. Kimmuriel has decreed that Jarlaxle should have only five members of the company for this expedition, just enough to crew a galleon like the _Eyecatcher_.

“Preparing the sails.”

“We’ll have a last briefing in the warehouse shortly. Make sure everyone is present.”

“Of course. Oh, and—” Valas reaches into his jerkin and tugs out a scroll of parchment sealed with wax. “This is my last report.”

Jarlaxle accepts it. “Thank you, Valas. Make sure you keep Kimmuriel appraised of matters here in my absence.”

“I will.”

He flicks his short cape back over his shoulder and strolls along the harbourside, toward the broad flat lumber laid on barrels that is used by the harbourmaster as a table for her ledgers.

The sea is calm, gently swaying. It is some time before fourth hour.

It has been a year since his last voyage by sea. The city has been good to him, this last year—it has been varied and brilliant and contrary. And it has brought him unexpected sweetness, of a kind he hadn’t thought to look for.

He thinks of Artemis—how often he has done that, since the day of Artemis’s leaving six months ago. In his quarters, locked in a drawer with a glyph on it so strong it would immolate any trespasser, is a sheaf of letters written in Artemis’s faultless italic hand.

They have been careful. In recent months Jarlaxle has felt Kimmuriel’s eye upon him, the reach of Kimmuriel’s spies, even from hundreds of miles away, and he has suspected that his letters to Artemis are being sifted for clues.

But in being circumspect, in relying on implication, he couldn’t simply write, _Would you come away, if I asked?_

He looks across the docks, which are quiet but not empty at this early hour. A caravel landed not long ago, and figures proceed in and out of warehouses, hefting crates and barrels full of glass—wine, Jarlaxle guesses. He thinks of his own vineyard—the valleys in the sunlight that hot brilliant green, the dry earth which looks black after rain, the vines sagging with clusters of ripe dark fruit. Another place he would like to show Artemis, some day.

He watches the labourers come and go, and the vagrants drifting between the warehouses, and the minutes pass—there is nothing.

Perhaps it is too far a journey; perhaps the illness yet lingers. Perhaps he no longer wants what Jarlaxle offers.

“Perhaps…” Jarlaxle murmurs to himself, mockingly. He lets his gaze be drawn toward the Eyecatcher, black and limned with moonlight in the distance. From where he is standing, it seems like both freedom and a prison.

He turns back to the shore.

There is a figure standing across the way—slim, hooded. A thrill rises through Jarlaxle’s sternum. It is a silhouette he would know anywhere.

He starts toward it, and the figure moves at the same time, and they meet beside one of the piers, and step behind a stack of crates.

Artemis takes down his cowl. There is a joy even in seeing his face again, eyes dark and liquid in the dregs of the light. “This is an ungodly hour to be setting off.” His pack is slung over his shoulder.

“My friend.” Jarlaxle has to flatten his voice, for it sounds breathless. “You made it through the gates without issue?”

“The magister barely looked at me.”

“That is something. Even a tenday ago they were far more—”

He is cut off. Artemis’ mouth tastes bitter from whisky, and Jarlaxle can smell dust—and faintly, brimstone—on the gloved hand that touches his jaw. Artemis kisses him deeply, insistently, and he closes his eyes and gives himself over to it.

When they part he skims his lips over Artemis’ cheek and murmurs, “Pleased to see me?”

“Already regretting the entire journey,” Artemis replies, and crushes Jarlaxle to him for another, while Jarlaxle laughs.

It is at the top of his throat: I have missed you. How ridiculous, when they have been parted only six months; and before that it was an absence of years, during which he expected never to see Artemis again. And yet it is what Artemis seems to be articulating, even without saying it: his hands around Jarlaxle’s face, his seeking mouth, his dark eyes.

“Come,” Jarlaxle says, starting off toward the street. “If you are here, I must collect my new crew.”

“What is wrong with your old crew.”

“Well, for one thing, they are all drow. And for another, they are loyal to Kimmuriel.”

“Jarlaxle.” He lets Artemis reel him back by the arm, and meets Artemis’ eyes, which are wary.

Artemis is here—after all of it, he is here, and of his own volition. Jarlaxle feels raw with that understanding. “You mean it, yes?” he says.

“Evidently.”

“Even after—” Their last journey alone together, which took from Artemis so heavy a toll.

“If you try anything like that again, I will leave.”

“I know,” Jarlaxle says. “But it will not be like that.”

He sees a faint skepticism in Artemis’ face—so, he hasn’t earned everything; some things are still to be proven. And this isn’t an ordinary man he has chosen; there remains, always, the possibility of disaster, and betrayal, and pain.

But he can’t think of that now—not with Artemis in front of him, rumpled and weary from the road, and so improbable in every way.

“You will enjoy it,” he says, and he presses a kiss to the corner of Artemis’ mouth which is far too solemn and contains much more than he can voice. Artemis chases it, hand fast upon Jarlaxle’s side.

Reluctantly Jarlaxle breaks off, and squeezes his shoulders. “Come.” They begin toward the street.

As they move into the torchlight, it strikes him that Artemis is pale, and the skin across his cheeks and around his eyes a little pinched. “You look peaky still, _abbil_.”

“I’m fine.”

“No fatigue or fever while you were travelling?”

“Jarlaxle—”

“Well, the fresh air and fine food will do you good, I think. I made sure to employ a _very_ good cook.”

“Of course you did. And what did you tell this new crew of yours?”

Jarlaxle grins. “I told them we were going to steal a ship. I didn’t mention it was mine.”

“Steal—” He can almost see the rapid motion of Artemis’ thoughts. “We’re not going to Lantan.”

“Oh, we might yet. But there are other places I’d like to take you first, and that requires getting rid of my handlers.”

“They’re _your_ men.”

“No—as Kimmuriel likes to say, they’re _our_ men, his and mine. As long as they’re aboard, there is a certain risk.”

“You think Kimmuriel would—”

“I told you that Kimmuriel was a rational actor, and that remains true. But, for a number of reasons, he will not react rationally when he discovers what I’ve done. I don’t wish to put upon them the choice of disobeying Kimmuriel or betraying me. Besides, you won’t feel comfortable with them about.”

“So you—simply found another crew?”

“I’m very persuasive,” Jarlaxle says, “and I pay well.”

The door to the tavern creaks as he pushes on it, and Artemis follows him inside. The barman—now rather sleepy looking—gives them an absent nod as they enter, pausing from his work of wiping down the bar with a cloth.

It is quieter than it was hours ago, when Jarlaxle set about acquiring his new travelling companions. He suspects they are have already drunk their way through the coin he gave them upfront, and are now sobering up.

The eight of them are sitting and standing around a tilted wooden table laden with mugs and tankards, but still appear somewhat alert. As Jarlaxle approaches, they all look up expectantly.

“Morning.” This from the ostensible leader of the motley group, who called himself ‘Raquin’. By his features and the shape of his ears, likely a half-elf; his shirt sleeves rolled up to show strong, brown arms.

Jarlaxle smiles widely at all of them. “Good morning, my friends. Are you ready to sail?”

“Yeah,” Raquin says. “Who’s this?”

“My partner,” Jarlaxle says. “He will be travelling with us.”

“Right.” Raquin looks at Artemis a moment longer—curious. “Lead on, captain.” The crew begins to rise, but they slump back into their seats when Jarlaxle says:

“Ah—some planning first, if I may.”

He clasps his hands behind his back. “The ship in question is anchored a mile off shore. Ordinarily it is reached by rowing boat—but we shall be using other, more _immediate_ means.”

“You mean, magic,” Artemis says. He is leaning against another table, arms folded.

“I do. You must be quiet, and very quick—the spell will last only seconds, and if you do not manage to board the ship in time, you will be left behind.”

“A’right,” Raquin says. “We can do that.”

“Now, it is _imperative_ that you are not seen or heard by the men guarding the ship. They are currently inside the empty warehouse on the corner of Crookedclaw Alley. I will provide a distraction to keep them inside, while you all reach the ship. As soon as you are aboard, make preparations to set sail.”

“And then?” One of the sailors, a woman with a round, scarred face and dirty blond hair.

He can’t resist flourishing his hand. “Why, and then I shall make us all disappear!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Artemis’ effort to hide his expression.

“What about you?” Raquin says.

“Ah, not to worry—I have my own means of reaching the ship. When he,” with a gesture to Artemis, “signals to you, you go.”

“A’right.” The others nod, or return his gaze steadily. He guessed they were a seasoned lot, and they seem unphased by his proposition. Good. 

“We will leave here first. Wait a half minute, and then follow us. Linger around the ship docked on the thirty-fourth pier—as though you are coming on shift.”

Together he and Artemis leave the tavern, and move around the dockside, keeping to the shadows.

Across the way two of his men, Serren and Ellul, linger by the doors to the warehouse disguised as humans. They are murmuring to each other, occasionally gesturing or chuckling, and looking out across the harbour.

“Stay out of sight,” he tells Artemis. “Anyone else I could explain away—but if they see you, the game is up.”

“Fine.”

He pauses to finger a strand of hair away from Artemis’ eyes and kiss him. “Just a short while, _abbil_.”

“We should knock them all out and be done with it.”

“No, no. Firstly, that seems needlessly crude. Secondly, I’ve no desire to hurt them. And thirdly, my men are much harder to overpower than they look.”

“I assure you,” Artemis says, with one of those small, terrible smiles that make Jarlaxle’s blood run straight downward, “they’re not.”

Jarlaxle sighs. “Now, I may be distracted…” He takes out the first of the rings from his pocket and slides it onto his middle finger.

“What is that?”

“Courtesy of my dear brother. I should like to give one _last_ performance, before I bid this city farewell.”

Artemis begins to give a disgruntled reply, but at that moment the door of the tavern opens, and the eight members of their new crew sidle out one after another, chattering idly and carrying their packs. Wending their way to the nearest pier, they gather on the jetty, sitting on barrels or crouching on the slick planking. They are good—it has the air of habit and nonchalance about it.

Using the crates and low buildings as cover, Jarlaxle slips closer to the warehouse. He concentrates on a region of cobblestones behind several crates, pinching the ring—and the air shivers and seems to turn inside out. It forms a shape, which becomes a figure, which becomes an image of himself in his human disguise.

 _I’ve seen you do that before_ , Artemis signs in the drow hand cant. He seems only a little rusty at it.

 _Not like this_ , Jarlaxle signs back. _Those were copies, this is_ —he casts about for the word— _more of a puppet._

Then he turns back, and sends the image sidling forward to the warehouse doors.

“Good morning,” he makes the image say, though it is laborious to shape the words with the throat and tongue, and he makes it give a jaunty salute. To their credit, his men startle only a little, and grin at him.

“Morning, sir.”

“Hello, sir.”

He clasps the image’s hands behind its back. “Are we awaiting anyone else?”

“One,” Ellul says. “Valas isn’t here yet, sir.”

“Ah.” He glances between them. “Is he expected soon?”

“He mentioned ‘last-minute tasks’,” Ellul uses the drow hand sign which indicates quotation, connoting a certain irony. Valas is widely liked, but a little eccentric. “But I shouldn’t like to speculate, sir.”

“Well, head inside. I’ll join you all shortly.”

“Sir.”

When the door is closed behind them, Jarlaxle turns the image about, as if in contemplation.

 _What now,_ Artemis signs.

He smiles. _Patience_.

All the same, he is a little agitated by the time Valas appears, a few minutes later. He sees Valas give the loitering humans on the pier a quick, calculating glance; but Valas seems to accept their presence. The docks are never entirely empty.

Reaching the image, Valas says, “Apologies. An informant requested a meeting at short notice—”

“Not at all,” Jarlaxle makes the image say. “There is always something to attend to here.”

"Always."

Valas gives him a smile and begins to go inside, and Jarlaxle makes the image follow and shut the doors behind them. Tapping his eyepatch, the stone warehouse wall becomes transparent. He can see his men—twelve of them—gathered inside, watching the image.

He drags his attention from it, back to his own person, and darts out from behind his cover.

In his pouch are several pieces of chalk. He takes one out, already blunted, and on the cobblestones he draws out in quick inelegant scratches the same runes that he inscribed earlier in a little-used corner of the hold of the _Eyecatcher_. Gromph taught him this spell impatiently—he can only hope that he has it right.

He slips back behind the crates. Inside the warehouse, the image moves to stand in front of the assembled group of drow, all of them wearing human disguises that Jarlaxle can readily see through. 

“Good morning, all. Apologies for the hour—there were a few things to arrange, and—well, better than in broad daylight, no?”

Nods from several sides; grins and warm looks.

“As you know, this is my last day in the city. I will be embarking on this voyage, as I have done previously, and when it is complete I will be returning to Menzoberranzan to manage our affairs there. It will be—”

Outside the warehouse, with half his attention still on that scene, Jarlaxle stands, and takes out the other ring he acquired from Gromph. He murmurs the incantation, and the ring begins to glow, red as an ember. It heats, and heats, and when he can no longer bear to touch it, he throws it down upon the ground, into the middle of the circle of runes he scrawled out.

Above the circle the air _burns_ , charring and peeling and curling like fabric, until there is a round opening large enough for a tall human to pass through. On the other side of it, where the water should be, Jarlaxle can see the boards of the _Eyecatcher_ ’s hull.

It will work.

He signs to Artemis, _Now!_

The reaction is instant. Artemis holds up his hand to signal the crew, and they rush for the circle. Jarlaxle sees the first man hesitate—but Artemis shoves him through, and he disappears, his shout cut off.

The others crowd in after him—three, four, six, seven; a scramble of bodies through the burning, sparking ring.

Then the last one is gone, and there is only Artemis, who gives Jarlaxle a kind of piercing look—one he has seen before—and rushes into the circle, a moment before it crumples and fades in a trail of hot red embers. The ring has burned up entirely, leaving only a scatter of ash.

Relieved, Jarlaxle returns his focus to his image in the warehouse. He can see them all, his men—some of them with packs, ready for the journey. Valas, sitting on a crate with a foot tucked under his thigh, idly fidgeting with a medallion on his jerkin. Fel’rekt, looking unusually serious. Maghen, smiling a touch, his sleek silver hair in an elaborate braid. Hereld, with that dreamy faraway look he often wears. Ellul and Serren and Rualas and the two dozen other soldiers who have served with him in this city, who have weathered the various dangers, humoured his whims and fancies, made possible the life he carved out here for a while. He feels a pang of gratitude for them.

“That does not mean our endeavours in Waterdeep are over—Valas will lead you in my absence, and I expect you to show him the same respect and deference as you would me.”

“You’ve never left me a carnival before,” Valas says, and the men all laugh, and Jarlaxle grins.

“Fel’rekt and Hereld know what to do with it. I’ve no doubt you’ll do a fine job.”

“Will you forgive me if I get rid of the polar bears?”

Thinking of Artemis, Jarlaxle says, “Never,” to more laughter. When it subsides, he continues:

“I have grown very fond of this city, and I give it over to your able hands, to build on what we have made. There is yet great possibility here, and I trust that you will exploit it for all its worth. I hope our time together has been enjoyable.”

“And now, I must bid you—bid you _all_ —a very fond farewell.”

As he leaves the image there, withdrawing from it, he sees a flicker of uncertainty in some of the faces. They weren’t expecting him to say that.

He has only two charges of displacement magic—there is no room for error. He touches his topaz ring and concentrates very hard upon that distant shape. He imagines the scuffed wood of the upper deck, stained with salt; the wheel and the wooden railing worn smooth; the brisking of the wind in the sails. Artemis with his arms folded, trying not to smile.

He feels a tug behind his hip and the great distance rushing at him; and he comes to a stop on planks damped with sea spray.

The ship is a commotion: the crew rushes about him, directed by Raquin, and he sees one of the nimblewrights at the running rigging, shaping the foresail with its almost lifelike wooden hands.

“Captain aboard!” He hears.

He closes his hand so that the ring presses against his palm; it is cool. On the shore, the illusion of himself will have disappeared, the magic frayed by distance.

With the last charge in the ring, he conjures his second illusion: a great likeness of the ship itself, fully illuminated, still and swaying where the _Eyecatcher_ is anchored. It isn’t quite large enough to obscure the ship entire—anyone looking from the north wall of the harbour would see a peculiar double image, slowly tearing itself apart. But from where his men will be looking, the _Eyecatcher_ will appear to be moored in its usual place.

The sails catch the breeze, filling with it, and the ship begins to move—slowly, but with growing speed. The wind is in their favour.

He hears the crew calling quietly to each other, partly covered by the sound of the water. The city—a vast enigmatic shape, a scatter of lights—begins to draw away from them. In the harbour, his other two ships grow smaller.

He leans against the side of the deck. As the minutes pass, he closes his eyes for a moment, enjoying the sense of motion. He waits, and waits—

Against his hand, the ring suddenly cools. In the distance the image of the _Eyecatcher_ flickers, blurring like a watercolour—and disappears.

From the harbourside it will appear that the ship, and Jarlaxle with it, has simply vanished into the night. His last flourish.

He fetches out his spyglass and twists it until he can see the distant and receding shore. Now he can make out the human figures on the docks, casting long shadows under the lamplight, their faces full of surprise, shock, alarm, amusement. With a smile, he stows the spyglass and the ring away.

Raquin calls, “Where to, Captain?”

Still looking at the city, he says, “Put some distance between us and this place. Then we’ll decide on a heading.”

“Aye, sir.”

We’ll decide, Jarlaxle thinks—and the prospect is exhilarating, and disquieting.

He finds Artemis on the afterdeck, leaning against the rail. The wind tugs at his collar and his hair, his light black cloak. His expression is inward, contemplative; he seems somehow remote from the rest of the ship.

Jarlaxle sidles up beside him, and he stirs and slowly straightens.

“Are you finished with your games,” he says.

“Never,” Jarlaxle says. “But I believe I have successfully made us disappear.” He touches Artemis’ back and, meeting no resistance, slips his arm around Artemis’ waist. “It will take them a while to sort it all out—so there will be a little time before I have to fend off angry communications from Kimmuriel.”

Artemis shifts his weight and looks him in the eyes. “Why did you do this.”

“Many reasons.”

There is a silence, in which Jarlaxle looks down at the frothing of the waves left in the ship’s wake, a roiling chiaroscuro, and tries to sort through it all. Artemis says, at last:

“You’re not going to extrapolate, are you.”

“No, _abbil_. Besides, I think by now you know most of them.” He leans his head, resting his temple against Artemis’ cheek.

“Hm,” Artemis says, a soft rumble near his ear, but nothing more. The ship picks up speed, skimming easily through the calm waters.

There is a berth near the mizzen-mast, and he leads Artemis to it. They sit together, and Jarlaxle tilts his head back to look at the sky. The stars are still out, pale and dusty and glimmering in the expanse over their heads.

Then he looks to the east, where a chalky blue aura of light is brinking above the horizon.

At his side, Artemis has closed his eyes. That the sickness was recent, is clear; Artemis still looks drawn from it. The thought tightens something in Jarlaxle’s chest—a fickle string, a sinew around his heart—and he wonders if he will ever cease to be surprised by this feeling.

He rests against Artemis’ shoulder, and presently that same arm folds around him. He feels Artemis’ chest move with his breath. He takes the hand nearest to his, and the heartbeat in the wrist when he finds it with his fingertips is deep and steady, and not very much like the ticking of a clock.

“I’m not dying,” Artemis murmurs.

“No, I’m pleased to report that you will live to be even older and more cantankerous.”

“And yet still not even half as old and mad as you.”

“I am as sprightly and as sane as I was at fifty. Whereas you can barely keep open your eyes.”

“I’m trying to shut you out, in the hope of preserving what remains of my sanity.”

“Ah, it is too late for you, _abbil_. Much, much too late.”

He strokes Artemis’ fingers, and Artemis’ thumb stirs gently upon his knuckles. They are silent for a long time.

Jarlaxle watches the stars dim, like lamps burning short of oil. The sky to the east looks flush, pinkish, with silky clouds strewn about and staining through with that same tender shade, delicate and lovely. It will be a magnificent sunrise, and a hot and beautiful day.

In his pocket is Valas’s last report; he supposes he should read it, to make sure he has left the city as it should be. Quietly he breaks the seal and unfurls it, to find several sheets of parchment. Meticulously recorded are the activities of the company over the last tenday; and of the many commoners and nobles who bring them information, the vast network of Jarlaxle’s friends and acquaintances, all of whom know him as someone else. The political intrigue, the squabbles and enmities. The latest comings and goings of the Masked Lord they have placed on the Council. He leafs through it all, smiling fondly as it all seems to recede into the distance.

The last sheet of parchment is blank, but for a pair of lines in Valas’s careful, printed hand. He has to raise it a little toward the lamp hung overhead to read it:

_Not related to any ongoing interest—_

_Good fortune, Captain, in whatever you seek. You will owe me a drink for this._

Jarlaxle laughs to himself. Somehow, Valas knew.

He rolls up the parchment and tucks it away.

Against him Artemis is falling asleep, though the berth is surely not comfortable. Jarlaxle rubs a circle in his palm and kisses the back of his hand. “You could rest more easily in my quarters, _abbil_.”

“This is fine.”

At that, he lifts his head again, to look at that vivid, complicated face. “You are happy here?”

“For now,” Artemis says—and it is a smile Jarlaxle can’t decipher; but now there is time in which he might try, time in which to begin again. “Yes.”

 

_End_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and to everyone who commented—I appreciated all of them, and particularly the encouragement when this story got slightly out of hand! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://mortsix.tumblr.com/), [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/mortsix), and Discord (same username + #0449).


End file.
